Mitch Zeller, who helped spear government efforts to regulate the tobacco industry in the 1990s, will replace Dr. Lawrence Deyton in March as head of the Center for Tobacco Products at the Food and Drug Administration, the Associated Press reported.

Zeller will take over on 4 March. Deyton, the center’s first chief, will leave government to become a professor of medicine and health policy at George Washington University, the AP reported. The news agency said it obtained its information from an internal memo from FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg, which it verified with the FDA. (pi)