Thermo Fisher Scientific: Alan Sachs and Karen Nelson

Thermo Fisher Scientific has appointed its current CSO Alan Sachs to the newly established role of chief medical officer. Sachs, who has served as CSO since 2016, will be succeeded by Karen Nelson, who previously served as president of the J. Craig Venter Institute. Both will join the company leadership team in August 2021.

In his new role, Sachs will help identify and promote the adoption of new technologies that benefit customers in the clinical space, and he will lead the company's medical affairs program, Thermo Fisher said. Nelson, who joined Thermo Fisher on July 6, currently serves as editor-in-chief of the journals Microbial Ecology and the newly formed PNAS Nexus. She is also an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences and a Fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology.