As director of the National Institutes of Health, Francis Collins, MD, holds one of the most interesting and influential positions in medical research. As the implementation of health reform approaches, he urges the government to increase its investment in biomedical research and pushes NIH to continue its commitment to ground-breaking scientific exploration.
In a 2010 interview with Chemical and Engineering News, he talked about NIH's opportunities for research development in the upcoming years. "I think the ability to identify all the resources to push forward phenomenal, unprecedented, historic scientific opportunities [is our most pressing issue at NIH] – the opportunities to ask and answer questions that we could not have really imagined even a decade ago," he said. "But will we have the resources in terms of both budget and talent to make those opportunities happen? That is what I think is our great current challenge. There is no shortage of great scientific ideas."
He also lamented the declining interest in science among America's youth, citing statistics that only 15 percent of current United States college and university graduates major in science and engineering. "That has drifted down gradually over the past couple of decades," he said. "Other countries are not seeing that trend at all. In China, it's 50 percent. In Singapore, it's 65 percent. We can't expect to maintain the remarkable U.S. track record of leadership in science and engineering without continuing to refresh our most critical resource, namely scientific talent."
He said in order to get the public on board with NIH's funding goals, researchers and scientists need to be more vocal about their breakthroughs and needs. "Effective communication is critical. I think most people don't even know what NIH stands for. The public generally knows what NASA is all about, but NIH, the major supporter of the research that brings hope for new advances in the treatment of cancer, diabetes and heart disease, has very little name recognition," he said. "One of the things that I think we need to do a better job of in the scientific community is getting the word out about what we do and why it matters — and why science is both interesting and challenging."
Dr. Collins became the 16th director of the NIH in Aug. 2009. A physician-geneticist noted for his discoveries of disease genes and his leadership of the Human Genome Project, Dr. Collins served as director of the National Human Genome Research Institute at the NIH from 1993-2008. After the project ended in 2003 with a finished sequence of the human DNA instruction book, he was awarded the Albany Medical Center Prize in Medicine and Biomedical Research.
Dr. Collins' own laboratory has discovered several important genes, including those responsible for cystic fibrosis, neurofibromatosis, Huntington's disease and Hutchinson-Gilford progeria syndrome. The head of the Association of American Universities, Robert M. Berdahl, told The Washington Post that Dr. Collins "is acutely aware of the public policy and ethical implications of medical science."
Dr. Collins received his MD with honors from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and spent nine years on the faculty of the University of Michigan, where he was a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator.
In a 2010 interview with Chemical and Engineering News, he talked about NIH's opportunities for research development in the upcoming years. "I think the ability to identify all the resources to push forward phenomenal, unprecedented, historic scientific opportunities [is our most pressing issue at NIH] – the opportunities to ask and answer questions that we could not have really imagined even a decade ago," he said. "But will we have the resources in terms of both budget and talent to make those opportunities happen? That is what I think is our great current challenge. There is no shortage of great scientific ideas."
He also lamented the declining interest in science among America's youth, citing statistics that only 15 percent of current United States college and university graduates major in science and engineering. "That has drifted down gradually over the past couple of decades," he said. "Other countries are not seeing that trend at all. In China, it's 50 percent. In Singapore, it's 65 percent. We can't expect to maintain the remarkable U.S. track record of leadership in science and engineering without continuing to refresh our most critical resource, namely scientific talent."
He said in order to get the public on board with NIH's funding goals, researchers and scientists need to be more vocal about their breakthroughs and needs. "Effective communication is critical. I think most people don't even know what NIH stands for. The public generally knows what NASA is all about, but NIH, the major supporter of the research that brings hope for new advances in the treatment of cancer, diabetes and heart disease, has very little name recognition," he said. "One of the things that I think we need to do a better job of in the scientific community is getting the word out about what we do and why it matters — and why science is both interesting and challenging."
Dr. Collins became the 16th director of the NIH in Aug. 2009. A physician-geneticist noted for his discoveries of disease genes and his leadership of the Human Genome Project, Dr. Collins served as director of the National Human Genome Research Institute at the NIH from 1993-2008. After the project ended in 2003 with a finished sequence of the human DNA instruction book, he was awarded the Albany Medical Center Prize in Medicine and Biomedical Research.
Dr. Collins' own laboratory has discovered several important genes, including those responsible for cystic fibrosis, neurofibromatosis, Huntington's disease and Hutchinson-Gilford progeria syndrome. The head of the Association of American Universities, Robert M. Berdahl, told The Washington Post that Dr. Collins "is acutely aware of the public policy and ethical implications of medical science."
Dr. Collins received his MD with honors from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and spent nine years on the faculty of the University of Michigan, where he was a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator.