• Judith Vaitukaitis, MD, is stepping down as the director of the National Center for Research Resources (NCRR), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH; Bethesda, Maryland), to serve as senior advisor on scientific infrastructure and resources to NIH Director Elias Zerhouni. Vaitukaitis' accomplishments during her tenure at the NCRR include the publishing of a plan based on extensive input from the scientific community and establishing the Institutional Development Award Program. Barbara Alving, MD, deputy director of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute and director of the Women's Health Initiative, will serve as acting director of NCRR. Alving, a co-inventor of two patents, is a professor of medicine at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences and a Master in the American College of Physicians.

• Linda Rubinstein has been named vice president of Solexa (Hayward, California). Rubinstein will assume the position of chief financial officer following the filing of Solexa's annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2004. Kathy San Roman, who currently holds the position of acting chief financial officer, will continue as Solexa's vice president of human resources and administration. Rubinstein brings to Solexa more than 16 years of life sciences industry and financial experience, including serving as principal of RDJ Advisors and as vice president of finance of ChemoCentryx. Solexa is developing and preparing to commercialize a new platform for genetic analysis, based on Sequencing-by-Synthesis and molecular arrays.

• Synovis Life Technologies (St. Paul, Minnesota) reported that Connie Magnuson has resigned as vice president of finance and CFO, effective April 12, to pursue other interests. Brett Reynolds, who joined Synovis in 2003 as director of finance and accounting, will be promoted to the position. Synovis Life Technologies manufactures medical devices for surgical and interventional treatments.