Francis S. Collins to be Nominated as NIH Director
President Obama plans to nominate geneticist Francis S. Collins director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), according to a White House statement released Wednesday. Collins led the Human Genome Project and served as director of the National Human Genome Research Institute at the National Institutes of Health from 1993-2008. Collins’s work in genetics led to the development of a gene-identification technique that was used by his team to discover the causes of a number of diseases, including cystic fibrosis, Huntington’s disease, neurofibromatosis, and most recently, genes for adult onset (type 2) diabetes and the gene that causes Hutchinson-Gilford progeria syndrome.
“My administration is committed to promoting scientific integrity and pioneering scientific research and I am confident that Dr. Francis Collins will lead the NIH to achieve these goals,” Obama said in the statement. “Dr. Collins is one of the top scientists in the world, and his groundbreaking work has changed the very ways we consider our health and examine disease.”
As NIH director, Collins would oversee the organization’s 27 institutes and approximately $30 billion in research funding.
Collins has been recognized as a leader in personalized medicine, and his book, The Language of Life: DNA and the Revolution in Personalized Medicine, is slated to be published early next year (HarperCollins). A press release issued by the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Advocacy Alliance, affiliate of the breast cancer research funding organization Susan G. Komen for the Cure, praised Collins’s nomination, calling him “a leader in the personalization of medicine and a forceful advocate of transparency and collaboration in research.”
Another of his books highlights why some, according to a New York Times article, could be concerned about Collins’s position as NIH leader. The best-seller The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief (Free Press, 2006) is a discussion of Collins’s strong religious beliefs and his integration of science and faith. As the Times article says, “some in the field complain about what they see as Dr. Collins’s evangelism.”
The nomination of Dr. Collins as NIH Director is a most visionary move for the Obama administration. His thoughtful insights combined with his broad medical and research experience/knowledge will serve our country in the finest possible manner as medicine reaps the promise of personalized medicine through continued genetic discovery.