President Obama nominated Robert Califf, a prominent cardiologist and longtime researcher at Duke University, as the next commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday.
The nomination comes after the resignation this spring of Margaret A. Hamburg, who left the agency in March after a six-year tenure marked by a wave of new drug approvals, as well as legislation to overhaul the nation's food safety system and begin regulating tobacco products for the first time. Stephen Ostroff, previously the FDA's chief scientist, has served as acting commissioner in recent months.
