Francis S. Collins, MD, PhD, announced in a statement his retirement as Director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), effective February 28, 2025. Dr. Collins is the longest-serving presidentially appointed NIH Director, having served three U.S. presidents over more than 12 years—Barack Obama, Donald J. Trump, and Joseph R. Biden, Jr.
Francis S. Collins, MD, PhD
“As I depart [NIH], I want to express my gratitude and love for the men and women with whom I have worked side by side for so many years,” Dr. Collins said in his statement. “They are individuals of extraordinary intellect and integrity, selfless and hard-working, generous and compassionate. They personify excellence in every way, and they deserve the utmost respect and support of all Americans.”
Tenure and Accomplishments at NIH
A physician-geneticist, Dr. Collins took office as the 16th NIH Director on August 17, 2009, after being appointed by President Obama and confirmed by the U.S. Senate. In 2017, he was asked to continue in his role by President Trump, and in 2021, by President Biden.
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.
Prior to becoming NIH Director, Dr. Collins served as the Director of the National Human Genome Research Institute from 1993 to 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.
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, with a goal to enroll 1 million people across the United States 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, which aims 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 multibillion-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 during his first Administration, 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 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; and the Researching COVID to Enhance Recovery (RECOVER) Initiative to identify why some patients don’t fully recover from the effects of COVID-19 and develop ways to treat these patients or even prevent long COVID altogether, among others.
Dr. Collins received a PhD in physical chemistry from Yale University, and an MD with honors from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Prior to coming to the NIH in 1993, he spent 9 years on the faculty of the University of Michigan, where he was a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator. He is an elected member of the Institute of Medicine and the National Academy of Sciences. Dr. Collins was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in November 2007 and the National Medal of Science in 2009.
