完整標題：Francis Collins to step down as director of the
National Institutes of Health
發稿單位：NIH
發稿時間：Tuesday, October 5, 2021
撰 稿 者：NIH
原文連結：https://reurl.cc/KrMaDR
Tuesday, October 5, 2021
Francis Collins to step down as director of the National Institutes of Health
Francis S. Collins, M.D., Ph.D., today announced his decision to end his
tenure as the director of the National Institutes of Health by the end of the
year. Dr. Collins is the longest serving presidentially appointed NIH
director, having served three U.S. presidents over more than 12 years.
“It has been an incredible privilege to lead this great agency for more than
a decade,” said Dr. Collins. “I love this agency and its people so deeply
that the decision to step down was a difficult one, done in close counsel
with my wife, Diane Baker, and my family. I am proud of all we’ve
accomplished. I fundamentally believe, however, that no single person should
serve in the position too long, and that it’s time to bring in a new
scientist to lead the NIH into the future. I’m most 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.”
A physician-geneticist, Dr. Collins took office as the 16th NIH director on
August 17, 2009, after being appointed by President Barack Obama and
confirmed by the U.S. Senate. In 2017, he was asked to continue in his role
by President Donald Trump, and in 2021, by President Joe Biden. Prior to
becoming the NIH director, Dr. Collins served as the director of the National
Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) from 1993-2008, where he led the
international Human Genome Project, which culminated in April 2003 with the
completion of a finished sequence of the human DNA instruction book.
“Few people could come anywhere close to achieving in a lifetime what Dr.
Collins has at the helm of NIH,” said Health and Human Services Secretary
Xavier Becerra. “It takes an extraordinary person to tackle the biggest
scientific challenges facing our nation — and under three presidents, amidst
three distinctly different chapters of American history. Dr. Collins, master
of scientific breakthroughs and scientific reason — from mapping the human
genome to fighting the most devastating pandemic of a century — has
routinely broken ground to save countless lives, while unleashing innovation
to benefit humanity for generations to come.”
Known for his accessible, plain-spoken manner, Dr. Collins garnered broad
bipartisan Congressional support for NIH research. During his 12-year
leadership, NIH’s budget grew by 38%, from $30 billion in 2009 to $41.3
billion in 2021. Dr. Collins proposed and established bold initiatives —
extending from fundamental basic science to translational science to focused
projects — to tackle some of the most pressing health issues facing
Americans, including Alzheimer’s disease, cancer, opioid use disorder, rare
diseases and the COVID-19 pandemic.
Dr. Collins long envisioned that knowledge gained from the mapping of the
human genome would be used to develop treatments tailored to every person’s
unique genetics, environment and lifestyle. To spur research in the emergent
area of precision medicine, Dr. Collins launched the All of Us Research
Program, which is well on its way to enrolling one million people across the
U.S. to provide their health data so that researchers can improve the way we
prevent illness as well as treat the full spectrum of diseases and
conditions. He also is the architect of several strong public-private
partnerships such as the Accelerating Medicines Partnership to reduce the
time from the identification of biological markers of disease to the
development of treatments that target those pathways.
In concert with the Obama administration, Dr. Collins launched the Brain
Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) Initiative, a
multi-billion-dollar effort to develop sophisticated technologies to
understand the neuronal networks of the brain and what goes wrong to cause
Alzheimer’s disease, schizophrenia, psychosis and other serious brain
diseases. He worked closely with then Vice President Biden to launch the
Cancer Moonshot Initiative to fuel innovation and speed new treatments to
reduce cancer incidence and improve patient outcomes. Under the leadership of
President Trump, Dr. Collins launched and galvanized the research and
addiction communities around the HEAL (Helping to End Addiction Long-term)
Initiative to address the national opioid crisis by improving treatments for
opioid misuse and addiction and enhancing pain management. Working with both
the Trump and Biden administrations to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic, Dr.
Collins helped launch several game-changing initiatives, including the
Accelerating COVID-19 Therapeutic Interventions and Vaccines (ACTIV)
public-private partnership that developed a coordinated research strategy for
prioritizing and speeding development of promising treatments and vaccines;
the Rapid Acceleration of Diagnostic (RADx) program to create an innovation
funnel for COVID-19 testing technologies; the Community Engagement Alliance
(CEAL) Against COVID-19 Disparities to support partnerships in communities
hardest hit by the pandemic and reduce health disparities; and the
Researching COVID to Enhance Recovery (RECOVER) Initiative(link is external)
to identify why some patients don’t fully recover from the effects of
COVID-19 disease and develop ways to treat these patients or even prevent
long COVID altogether.
All these efforts have set the stage for a new component of NIH, known as the
Advanced Research Project Agency for Health (ARPA-H), proposed by President
Biden and strongly supported by Dr. Collins. ARPA-H is currently under
consideration by the U.S. Congress. Modeled after DARPA in the Department of
Defense, ARPA-H is envisioned to support and conduct high-risk, high-reward
biomedical and health research in a way that is radically different than NIH’
s grant-based system. The aim of ARPA-H is to collapse barriers and catalyze
the development of transformative, evidence-based, use-driven cures for a
range of biomedical challenges, from the molecular to the societal.
On the policy front, Dr. Collins has tackled many long-standing issues that
have hampered science. He bolstered policies and activities to address sexual
harassment and structural racism, enhance accountability and transparency in
clinical trials and ensure broad data sharing. He has been a champion of
early-stage researchers, implementing numerous policies to enable their
success in a hyper-competitive research environment.
He is an avid supporter of science communication, and the importance of
making the findings of NIH research accessible to the public. He shares
information about the latest NIH research via his blog, Twitter handle(link
is external) and through many social media events. He is known for using
music to convene people with different perspectives and for his parodies
about science.
Dr. Collins will continue to lead his research laboratory at the NHGRI, which
is pursuing genomics, epigenomics and single cell biology to understand the
causes and means of prevention for type 2 diabetes. His lab also seeks to
develop new genetic therapies for the most dramatic form of premature aging,
Hutchinson-Gilford Progeria Syndrome.
About the National Institutes of Health (NIH): NIH, the nation's medical
research agency, includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. NIH is the primary federal
agency conducting and supporting basic, clinical, and translational medical
research, and is investigating the causes, treatments, and cures for both
common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs,
visit www.nih.gov.
弗朗西斯柯林斯卸任美國國立衛生研究院院長
後面就巴拉巴拉他的豐功偉業.
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重點這個傢伙跟福奇是同一掛的,
去年都是強烈支持病毒自然學說.