Dan Nathans Ready To Serve As President 'In Every Sense' Nobel Prize winner accepted role because of strong feelings for JHU By Dennis O'Shea Don't expect Dan Nathans to be just a placeholder. "There are going to be real problems and real decisions to be made even before a long-term president is on board," said Dr. Nathans, appointed by the board of trustees last week to serve as the first-ever interim president of the university. "I think an interim president ought to be the president in every sense," he said, "providing he realizes he's not going to be there very long and can't expect to make long-term changes in such a short time." Dr. Nathans, 66, a Nobel Prize-winning physician and molecular biologist and a member of the Johns Hopkins University faculty for 33 years, will take office June 1. He will lead the university during the search for a successor to President William C. Richardson, who leaves June 15 and will assume the presidency of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation on Aug. 1. Dr. Nathans said he is not a candidate to succeed Dr. Richardson. "Dan is well known to many of us on the board, and among members of the faculty and staff," said Morris W. Offit, chairman of the board of trustees, who announced the appointment. "He is an accomplished and internationally recognized scientist and teacher. Clearly, he is one of the university's most engaged and distinguished citizens. We are fortunate that he is willing and able to accept this important assignment for the university." Dr. Nathans, one of three co-winners of the 1978 Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physiology and a 1993 recipient of the National Medal of Science, said he agreed to accept the interim presidency "because I feel so strongly about Johns Hopkins University." "I've felt extraordinarily privileged to be a faculty member here," said Dr. Nathans, who is University Professor of Molecular Biology and Genetics and senior investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute at the School of Medicine. "I owe the university a great deal," he said. "I think it's important to have a smooth transition to keep the momentum going. I felt in a sense obligated to accept this. "And I regard it as an interesting challenge," he said. "I really look forward to it." He said he expects to devote considerable time to university finances and to the Johns Hopkins Initiative, the $900 million joint campaign of the university and the Johns Hopkins Hospital and Health System. That effort, launched in October and scheduled to continue until 2000, has already raised commitments of more than $331 million, or 37 percent of the overall goal. The campaign has also recorded commitments of more than $235 million, 45 percent of its $525 million goal for endowment and facilities needs, the primary focus of the campaign. Dr. Nathans said he also expects to invest weeks before he takes office learning more about other issues facing the university. "Certainly, finance is going to take a lot of time and attention from me and the person who comes in for the long term," he said. "I want to find out also if there are pressing issues on the academic side. I'll need to consult with the provost, the deans, the faculty, the various vice presidents and the students, which I intend to do." Dr. Nathans said that, while he will not be able to teach classes while serving as interim president, he does intend to remain an active researcher and to work frequently with the postdoctoral fellows in his laboratory. Dr. Nathans, a native of Wilmington, Del., graduated from the University of Delaware and, in 1954, received his M.D. degree from Washington University in St. Louis. Following his residency and a period as a researcher at Rockefeller University, he joined the Johns Hopkins faculty in 1962. His research has focused on viruses that cause tumors in animals and, more recently, on cellular responses to growth factors. The work for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize--using restriction enzymes to construct physical and functional maps of the genome of viruses--laid the groundwork for the present worldwide effort to map the human genome. His co-winners included Hamilton O. Smith, a fellow faculty member at the School of Medicine. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Philosophical Society. From 1990 to 1993, he served on the President's Council of Advisers on Science and Technology. He also served on the Committee for the 21st Century, the university's recently completed strategic planning effort, and chaired its study group on the faculty. Dr. Nathans is married to Joanne Gomberg Nathans. They have three children and four grandchildren. ***************************************************************** Nathans Makes History As First Interim President Daniel Nathans is the first person officially designated by the Johns Hopkins University board of trustees as an interim president of the university. When Ira Remsen, the university's second president, was forced to resign due to ill health in January 1913, an Administrative Committee, headed by William Henry Welch, ran the university until Frank J. Goodnow took office in October 1914. The university twice has appointed presidents for what were understood, in advance, to be brief tenures, said archivist James Stimpert of the university's Ferdinand Hamburger Jr. Archives. Neither man, however, was elected as an interim president, he said. When Detlev Bronk, the sixth president, left in August 1953, Lowell J. Reed, who had just retired as vice president for medicine, was named president. Although Reed served nearly three years, it was understood from the beginning that he wished to resume his retirement as quickly as possible. The other occasion was in March 1971, when Lincoln Gordon, the ninth president, resigned. The trustees persuaded Milton Eisenhower to return as president in April 1971, but, again, he made it clear that he wanted an expedited search for a successor. Steven Muller, who had become provost just prior to Gordon's leaving, took over as president less than a year later, in February 1972. All other changes in administration at Hopkins have involved a direct transition from the incumbent president to his successor. *****************************************************************