After being investigated after learning that he spoke and acted in a disrespectful way with his subordinates, Eric Lander, scientific adviser to Joe Biden, tendered his resignation on Monday.

The information was confirmed by White House press secretary Jen Psaki, who said she accepted Lander’s resignation letter and thanked her for her advice on the COVID-19 pandemic, cancer and the climate crisis.

“Biden knows that Dr. Lander will continue to make important contributions to the scientific community for years to come,” said Psaki, who hours earlier refused to explain why Lander was not fired after his actions became known . Nor had he specified whether there was a conversation between him and the president.

It was learned that Lander was the subject of an internal investigation last year after receiving a complaint for conduct that contrasted with the rules of behavior established by President Biden when he became president in January 2021, a fact that gained media attention in recent hours.

Although the White House has not made public the content of the complaint against Lander, the newspaper Politico published an interview with Rachel Wallace, a career official who stated that the scientist retaliated when employees contradicted him, gave them nicknames, made fun of them and removed responsibilities from their position.

” Many women had to leave crying, traumatized and feeling vulnerable and isolated ,” Wallace told the aforementioned medium.

Likewise, Wallace accused Lander of cracking down on her by being moved as “number two” of the Office of Science and Technology Policy team after being the leader of that group.

Faced with these complaints, Lander sent a letter to his subordinates in which he apologized , admitting that he had not fulfilled his responsibility to create a respectful work environment.

“I have spoken to colleagues in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy in a disrespectful or demeaning manner (…) It is not acceptable that I speak in that way,” he acknowledged.

Until the time of his resignation, Lander was the director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, a department that was key to the response to the pandemic, and has been recognized for leading the Human Genome Project, research that is gave between 1990 and 2003 , which was responsible for determining the sequence of chemical base pairs that make up DNA and identifying all human genes.

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