Susan B. Shurin, MD, who had been deputy director of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute since February 2006, became acting director of the NHLBI on Dec. 1, 2009.

Shurin is a pediatric hematologist and oncologist who held appointments as professor of pediatrics and professor of oncology at Case Western Reserve University before joining the NIH and NHLBI in 2006.She will guide the NHLBI through a period of transition as a nationwide search is conducted to replace Elizabeth G. Nabel, MD, who stepped down as NHLBI director to become president of Brigham and Women's/Faulkner Hospitals in Boston.

Shurin's appointment leaves vacant the top post at the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, where she had been serving as acting director since Oct. 1. Alan E. Guttmacher, MD, became the NICHD's new acting director.