“The National Library of Medicine today announced the departure of David J. Lipman, MD, who has served as the Director of the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) since its creation almost 30 years ago….

NCBI creates and maintains a series of databases relevant to biotechnology and biomedicine, and is a world-renowned and trusted resource for bioinformatics tools and services. Major NCBI databases include GenBank for DNA sequences and PubMed, one of the most heavily used sites in the world for the search and retrieval of biomedical information.

 “It’s hard to think of anyone at NIH who has had a greater impact on the way research is conducted around the world than David Lipman,” noted NLM Director Patricia Flatley Brennan, RN, PhD. “Under his visionary leadership, NCBI has greatly improved access to biomedical information and genomic data for scientists, health professionals, and the public worldwide—something we now practically take for granted.”…Dr. Lipman has been an advocate for promoting open access to the world’s biomedical literature and launched PubMed in 1997, followed by the full-text repository, PubMed Central (PMC), in 2000.   He was instrumental in implementing the NIH Public Access Policy whereby NIH-funded papers are made publicly available in PMC….”