July 2–WASHINGTON — A scientist on the front lines of the anthrax investigation has been selected to head the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, administration officials said Tuesday.

Dr. Julie Gerberding will become the first female director of the CDC, the nation’s top public health agency.

Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson is scheduled to announce the appointment Wednesday afternoon at the CDC’s Atlanta headquarters, said an administration official told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.

Gerberding, 46, is the CDC’s acting deputy director for science.

An infectious-disease specialist credited with pioneering steps to protect health care workers exposed to the AIDS virus, Gerberding was recruited to the CDC in 1998 and went on to become one of its most quoted, unflappable investigators into last fall’s anthrax attacks.

“The country could not be better served,” said Dr. Julius R. Krevans, chancellor emeritus at the University of California, San Francisco, where Gerberding worked before joining the CDC.

“She’s somebody who has been able to withstand the pressure and take the heat and always use good science-based judgment to make decisions,” said Dr. James Curran of Emory University, the CDC’s former AIDS chief, who has known Gerberding for over a decade.

The new CDC director faces some immediate challenges: ensuring the agency is ready should bioterrorism strike again; regaining trust for what critics have called its early fumbling during the anthrax attacks; and learning to work with the CIA, FBI and proposed Homeland Security Department, a function new to CDC’s doctors.