Francis Collins - NIH Director

NIH Director

On July 8, 2009 President Barack Obama nominated him to the position of Director of the National Institutes of Health. The US Senate unanimously confirmed him for this post, announced by HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius on August 7, 2009.

According to Science, Collins "is known as a skilled administrator and excellent communicator" and President Obama's nomination of him to lead the NIH "did not come as a big surprise", and produced many praising analysis from researchers and biomedical groups. It also found critics, mainly due to his outspoken Christian faith. Others think that this fact may prove to be positive to establish bridges with those that see gene-based research as contrary to religious values. His appointment was welcomed by the CEO of the AAAS and by Bernadine Healy.

In the summer of 2009 some preeminent scientists were meeting in Cambridge, England, celebrating the hundred-and-fiftieth anniversary of publication of "The Origin of Species" and word arrived that President Obama had chosen Collins to head the NIH, and, according to Nobel laureate Harold Varmus who was also present, some of them were alarmed. Varmus had been a NIH director under Bill Clinton, and as such, Collins' boss. He tried to calm the distress by saying that he "is a terrific scientist, and very well organized and a great spokesperson for the N.I.H., has terrific connections in Congress, and is a delightful person to work with". In November 2011, Collins was included on The New Republic's list of Washington's most powerful, least famous people.

In October 2009, shortly after his nomination as NIH director, Collins stated in an interview in the New York Times,“I have made it clear that I have no religious agenda for the N.I.H., and I think the vast majority of scientists have been reassured by that and have moved on.”

On October 1, 2009, Collins appeared for the second time on The Colbert Report, discussing his leadership at the NIH and other topics such as personalized medicine and stem cell research.

Collins was nominated by the National Institutes of Health to be one of the USA Science and Engineering Festival's Nifty Fifty Speakers to speak about his work and career to middle and high school students in October 2010.

A new center at NIH was slated to open in October 2011, and to be called the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) to help develop new drugs. Dr. Collins, frustrated by the declining productivity in the pharmaceutical industry, is leading the effort. For it to work, they have to close one of the 27 institutes already at NIH and give its functions to the new center—something that has never been done before. The idea is to downgrade the National Center for Research Resources, and give some of its functions to NCATS. As of January 2011, over 1000 comments were archived about the proposed NCATS. Nevertheless, in September 2011 there were doubts about the possibility to meet the deadline, because of delays in Congressional approval.