Scripps Research Institute, a biomedical research powerhouse with facilties in California and Florida, will soon have a new president. Michael Marletta, a chemist at the University of California-Berkeley, will succeed Richard Lerner, who has headed Scripps for the last 25 years, beginning January 2012.

Marlatta, a member of the US National Academy of Sciences and recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship, is best known for research that helped establish nitric oxide as a potent bio-molecule, particularly in the immune system. He will join the faculty of Scripps in July of this year.

Even though Scripps made the announcement on Sunday, it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. Xconomy reported rumours of Marlatta’s hire in late January. While in July, Genomeweb noted the search for a successor to Lerner, after an advertisement for his position appeared in the journal Cell.

Lerner has overseen a massive expansion of Scripps, which is based in San Diego, including the creation of a new campus in Jupiter, Florida, which opened in 2009.

Image courtesy of University of California, Berkeley Department of Chemistry