Hutch Director to Step Down Next Year SEATTLE, WA (KPLU) - The Nobel-prize-winning director of Seattle's Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center is retiring. Lee Hartwell says he'll step down next year, after a replacement is hired. A national search will begin soon for a replacement. Hartwell, who is 70, won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2001. That was four years after he was hired as director of the Hutchinson Center. After retiring, he'll continue as an emeritus researcher, working on his prime focus - early detection of cancer. Under Hartwell's tenure, the Hutch has consolidated from three locations around Seattle, to one sizable campus near Lake Union. The center has about 2,600 employees, including about 200 faculty-level scientists.

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