Francis Collins’ successor to lead the U.S. National Human Genome Research Institute will be Eric Green, NHGRI’s current scientific director and head of intramural research, the NIH said today.

Green, a native of St. Louis, Missouri, has both an MD and a PhD from Washington University in St. Louis, and worked on the Human Genome Project as a co-investigator at Washington University’s Human Genome Sequencing Center before arriving at NIH in 1994. He now leads NIH’s internal genome sequencing center and has led and been involved with many other projects at NHGRI, such as the Undiagnosed Diseases Program, the NIH said.

Collins called Green the “perfect choice” of director at the genome institute. “He grew up professionally with the genome era and has been on the cutting edge of genomics research for more than two decades,” Dr. Collins said.

Combined with Collins’ position at the helm of NIH, Green’s selection sends a positive signal to the large-scale genome sequencing community and would seem to signal a commitment to new sequencing technologies, and to tackling the challenge of converting knowledge of human genomes into medical treatments, both personalized and otherwise.

“My job going forward is to push the application of genomics into all areas of biomedical research, beyond NHGRI’s boundaries, and find effective ways to collaborate with a wide range of researchers to translate genomic discoveries into medical advances,” Green said.

He will start his new job on 1 December.