Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost George Breslauer announced in an email to campus officials Monday that G. Steven Martin, a professor of cell and developmental biology, has been appointed interim dean of biological sciences in the College of Letters and Science.

Martin, who joined the Department of Molecular and Cell Biology in 1989 and has served as department chair since 2007, will take over July 1 for Mark Schlissel, the department's former dean who was recently named provost of Brown University.

Breslauer added that "a full, internal search for a permanent dean will be initiated" after Martin assumes the position in July.

Martin first came to UC Berkeley from England as a postdoctoral fellow in 1968. He earned his Ph.D. in molecular biology at Cambridge University before coming to work for three years as a postdoc in UC Berkeley's virus laboratory. Following a position on the staff of London's Imperial Cancer Research Fund he returned to UC Berkeley in 1975 as an assistant professor in the Department of Zoology and an assistant research virologist in the campus's cancer research laboratory.