NIH director stepping down after 12 years
WASHINGTON – Dr. Francis S. Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health for 12 years, said Tuesday he is stepping down, capping a career in which he directed crucial research into the human genome and the fight against serious diseases like cancer, Alzheimer’s, diabetes and COVID-19.
Collins said he was “grateful and proud of the NIH staff and the scientific community, whose extraordinary commitment to lifesaving research delivers hope to the American people and the world every day.” He said the decision to step down at year’s end was “a difficult one.”
Collins was appointed the agency’s 16th director in 2009 by President Barack Obama and was asked to remain in that post by Presidents Donald Trump and Joe Biden. He is the only presidentially appointed NIH director to serve under multiple administrations.
The NIH, based in Bethesda, Maryland, is part of the Department of Health and Human Services.
HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra lauded Collins for his work, calling him a “master of scientific breakthroughs.”