National Institute of
Darren Sledjeski, Ph.D., is the acting deputy director at NIGMS, where he supports the director in overseeing the Institute's budget, which supports basic research that increases understanding of biological processes and lays the foundation for advances in disease diagnosis, treatment, and prevention.
Prior to taking this recent role, Sledjeski was the director of the Division of Extramural Activities at the National Institute of Arthritis, Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases (NIAMS). Prior to leaving NIGMS in 2023, he was the deputy director of the Division of Extramural Activities at NIGMS, chief of the Genetic Mechanisms Branch in the Division of Genetics and Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology at NIGMS, and scientific initiatives manager in the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases' (NIAID) Office of Initiative Development. Prior to that, Sledjeski was a scientific review officer in the Institute’s Office of Scientific Review.
Sledjeski came to NIH from the University of Toledo Medical Center, where he was first an assistant and later an associate professor in the department of microbiology and immunology. He earned a B.S. in biology from the College of William and Mary and a Ph.D. in microbiology from the University of Maryland, College Park. Sledjeski conducted postdoctoral research at NCI.