The influx of information that was brought about by the sequencing of the human genome creates a challenge for biomedical research at Harvard and all over the world, Martin says.

"All of that is going to involve a new way of doing science and it will require the close collaboration of chemists, physicists, and computer scientists," says Martin. "Harvard ought to be able to carry this forward in the best way possible. These ideas seemed to mesh with [Summers'] thoughts on science."

Explaining Imaginary Numbers

Summers' presidency will not be his first time setting priorities for scientific research. Neal F. Lane, a professor at Rice University who served as the assistant to the president for science and technology under Clinton and later took the post of Director of the National Science Foundation, says Summers was a strong advocate of giving money to scientific research while he was at the Department of the Treasury.

"He was always judicious and fair," says Lane. "I always viewed Larry as one of the champions of federal investment in science and technology."

Lane, who was trained as a physicist, says that Summers has a talent for explaining how the complex ideas of science can have real-world benefits. For example, Lane says Summers likes to explain how the idea of the square root of negative one, i--a so-called imaginary number--has had a tremendous effect on technology. i represents a point in the two-dimensional plane, and such two-dimensional numbers are used extensively in engineering and physics. Lane says Summers uses i as an example of how theoretical understanding can lead to practical benefits.

"Without going into the details of writing equations down, people see how mathematics has helped us," Lane says.

Lane says he thinks Summers has his priorities for science in the right place.