The Scripps Research Institute has named Michael Marletta to succeed long-time Scripps President Richard Lerner, who plans to continue his research at the institute after stepping down from the lead position.

Marletta was the chair of the chemistry department and a professor in the molecular and cell biology department at The University of California-Berkeley. He is also a former MacArthrur Fellowship winner. Lerner has led the institute for 25 years.

GE Healthcare said that Life Sciences CEO and President Peter Ehrenheim will retire this year and will be replaced by Kieran Murphy, who currently is head of global commercial operations in the Life Sciences division.

Murphy will step into job in April, and after a period of transition, Ehrenheim will retire at the end of July. Ehrenheim was a mechanical engineer with Pharmacia, which was acquired by Amersham in 1997, which in turn was acquired by GE. Murphy was CEO of Whatman, which was acquired by GE Healthcare in 2008. He also has worked at Janssen Pharmaceutical, at Vericore, and at Novartis.

Only one of the 62 prioritized SNPs from the GWAS analysis (P 1 x 10⁻⁴) showed genome‐wide significance with survival into old age in the meta‐analysis of 4149 nonagenarian cases and 7582 younger controls (OR = 0.71 (95% CI 0.65‐0.77), P = 3.39 x 10⁻¹⁷). This SNP, rs2075650, is located in TOMM40 at chromosome 19q13.32 close to the apolipoprotein E (APOE) gene. Although there was only moderate linkage disequilibrium between rs2075650 and the ApoE ε4 defining SNP rs429358, we could not find an APOE‐independent effect of rs2075650 on longevity, either in cross‐sectional or in longitudinal analyses. As expected, rs429358 associated with metabolic phenotypes in the offspring of the nonagenarian cases from the LLS and their partners. In addition, we observed a novel association between this locus and serum levels of IGF‐1 in females (P = 0.005).

Results The cumulative incidence of repeat infections in the sample (n=183) was 13% (95% CI 8% to 18%). Predictors of repeat infections
included younger age and continued sex with a partner not known to be treated. Frequencies of having partners not known to
be treated, new partners, or partners not known to be monogamous at follow-up were 21% (95% CI 15% to 27%), 37% (95% CI 30%
to 44%) and 33% (95% CI 28% to 41%), respectively. The PAR% for having a partner not known to be treated was 26% (95% CI 3%
to 49%) and for having a new sex partner was 21% (95% CI 0% to 50%). Among eight patients with available genotypes at baseline
and follow-up, five had different genotypes and were classified as having a different partner source of infection.

Halo Genomics of Sweden has tapped Westburg to distribute its sequencing target enrichment products in Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxemburg, the company said this week.

Netherlands-based Westburg is a supplier of molecular biology reagents and equipment for research and molecular diagnostics applications.

Halo Genomics, based in Uppsala, offers target selection services and kits for next-gen sequencing that are based on its Selector technology. It is currently working on a new product that combines single-tube target amplification and sequencing library prep for the Illumina platform (IS 3/1/2011).

The firm, which changed its name from Olink Genomics last year, recently signed on several other distributors: Cambio for the UK, Integrated Sciences for Australia and New Zealand, and Biozym Scientific for Germany and Austria.