The new dean of Harvard Medical School will be Jeffrey Flier, who has been the chief academic officer at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and is a well known diabetes/obesity researcher. He was involved in the formation of Harvard’s new university-wide science and engineering committee, which will promote more interdisciplinary, cross-school and cross-department collaborations, at the Allston campus and throughout the university. With Flier at the head of HMS, it’s likely that researchers at the school will be nudged to work more with their colleagues across the river.

It’s also interesting that the two recently appointed new leaders at Harvard, Drew Faust and Jeffrey Flier, are people who were from Harvard. It’ll be interesting to see whether other new deans to be appointed in the future will be Harvard insiders. If so, what message will this send? That only people who know Harvard (its ways, people and culture) can run and change it?

In other unrelated news, Massachusetts could be the first state to institute a statewide ban on trans fat in restaurants. A state representative proposed the ban and the Massachusetts Restaurant Association actually said yesterday that it wouldn’t oppose it. Apparently, restaurant owners are finding that it’s not as hard as they first thought to switch to healthier cooking oils. Now it’s up to the other state legislators to make their move.