In David Baltimore (1975 Nobel Laureate in Physiology or Medicine), Whitehead found a partner who agreed that this approach would create an "optimum environment for basic research".

[5] As Whitehead Institute's Founding Director, Baltimore handpicked Harvey Lodish,[6] and Robert Weinberg from MIT,[7] Gerald Fink from Cornell University,[8] and Rudolf Jaenisch from University of Hamburg, Germany, to be Whitehead Institute's Founding Members.

[10] In 2004 the CGR formed the independent Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, of which then-Whitehead Member Eric Lander was named Founding Director and President.

[21] More than a dozen similar programs have since been established around the country, including those at the University of California/San Francisco, Carnegie Institution, and Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory.

[22][23] Past Whitehead Fellows include George Q. Daley, Dean of Harvard Medical School;[24] Angelika Amon, the late MIT professor and cancer researcher;[25] Kathleen Rubins, NASA astronaut and space biologist;[26] and Stanford University professor Peter S. Kim, who is former President of Merck Research Laboratories.