President Obama Announces Intent to Nominate Francis Collins as NIH Director

I got this email in my inbox yesterday. I was particularly interested when I got to the part about Mr. Collins' interest in faith and God. But this is really nothing to get excited about. He is just another theistic evolutionist. But I'm sure Obama hopes to score points with Rick Warren's crowd on this one.


THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Vice President
For Immediate Release
July 8, 2009

President Obama Announces Intent to Nominate Francis Collins as NIH Director


WASHINGTON - Today, President Barack Obama announced his intent to nominate Francis S. Collins as Director of the National Institutes of Health at the Department of Health and Human Services.

President Obama said, "The National Institutes of Health stands as a model when it comes to science and research. 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. 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. I look forward to working with him in the months and years ahead."

Francis S. Collins, Nominee for Director, National Institutes of Health, Health and Human Services

Francis S. Collins, M.D., Ph.D., a physician-geneticist noted for his landmark discoveries of disease genes and his leadership of the Human Genome Project, served as Director of the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) at the National Institutes of Health from 1993-2008. With Dr. Collins at the helm, the Human Genome Project consistently met projected milestones ahead of schedule and under budget. This remarkable international project culminated in April 2003 with the completion of a finished sequence of the human DNA instruction book. In addition to his achievements as the NHGRI Director, Dr. Collins' own research laboratory has discovered a number of important genes, including those responsible for cystic fibrosis, neurofibromatosis, Huntington's disease, a familial endocrine cancer syndrome, and most recently, genes for adult onset (type 2) diabetes and the gene that causes Hutchinson-Gilford progeria syndrome. Dr. Collins has a longstanding interest in the interface between science and faith, and has written about this in The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief (Free Press, 2006), which spent many weeks on the New York Times bestseller list. He has just completed a new book on personalized medicine, The Language of Life: DNA and the Revolution in Personalized Medicine (HarperCollins, to be published in early 2010). Collins received a B.S. in Chemistry from the University of Virginia, a Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry from Yale University, and an M.D. with Honors from the University of North Carolina. Prior to coming to NIH in 1993, he spent nine years on the faculty of the University of Michigan, where he was an investigator of the Howard
Hughes Medical Institute. He has been elected to the Institute of Medicine and the National Academy of Sciences, and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in November 2007.

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For Immediate Release:

AAMC PRAISES NOMINATION OF FRANCIS S. COLLINS, M.D., Ph.D., TO BE NEW NIH
DIRECTOR

Washington, D.C., July 8, 2009-AAMC (Association of American Medical Colleges) President and CEO Darrell G. Kirch, M.D., issued the following statement today on President Obama's nomination of Francis S. Collins, M.D., Ph.D., to be the new director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH):

"The nation's medical schools and teaching hospitals are very pleased that President Obama's nominee to be the 16th director of the National Institutes of Health is Dr. Francis Collins. He is an exceptional scientist, administrator, and communicator. Dr. Collins' brilliant leadership of the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium resulted in the successful completion of the project ahead of schedule and under budget. His skillful direction of this collaborative venture-one of the greatest technical, scientific, and management accomplishments of our lifetime-is just one example of the expertise he will bring to the NIH and its 27 institutes and centers. In addition, Dr. Collins has written eloquently about the potential of medical research to transform how we think about health and health care.

America is very fortunate to have a scientist of Dr. Collins' experience, understanding, and vision willing to serve as leader of the world's foremost biomedical and behavioral research enterprise. The AAMC looks forward to working with Dr. Collins as he leads the NIH forward in this period of tremendous scientific potential and fiscal, administrative, and research challenges."