Notables

MIT biochemist Alexander Rich has won the Welch Award in Chemistry for his fundamental insights into the structure and function of RNA and DNA. He will receive the $300,000 prize in October.

Caritas Christi Health Care's senior vice president and chief information officer is leaving for Vermont. Charles H. Podesta, 50, will become chief information officer of Fletcher Allen Health Care in Burlington, Vt., in June. Last month Roger Deshaies, formerly senior vice president for finance at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, joined Fletcher Allen as its chief financial officer. The hospital is affiliated with the University of Vermont School of Medicine.

Clifford J. Tabin, a professor of genetics at Harvard Medical School, is one of two scientists to win the 2008 March of Dimes Prize in Developmental Biology. He will share the $250,000 award with Philip A. Beachy of Stanford. They are being honored for their work with "hedgehog" genes and how they affect the way embryos develop and form limbs, the brain, and other organs. Hedgehog genes got their name from the prickly appearance they gave fruit fly embryos.

Dr. Andy Whittemore, chief medical officer at Brigham and Women's Hospital, has been elected president of the American Surgical Association. Whittemore trained as a vascular surgeon, was a division chief at Brigham and Women's, and has been chief medical officer there since 1999.