Biden’s pick for top science adviser passes Senate hurdle

Committee chair expresses regret that newly empowered science position was not offered to a woman

The geneticist Eric Lander has been given the okay by the Senate science committee to become director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), a position that US president Joe Biden has elevated to cabinet level.

In a 20 May session, committee chair Maria Cantwell said she “would have loved to see a woman here in this position”, but added that she and Lander had come to an “understanding that the very first task that [Lander] should focus on is helping all of us add diversity of women and minorities in the science field”.