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Sep 16, 2024

Dr. Francis Collins — Former Director, U.S. National Institutes Of Health (NIH) — The Road To Wisdom

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, chemistry, genetics, life extension

The Road To Wisdom — Dr. Francis Collins, MD, PhD — Former Director, National Institutes of Health (NIH); Distinguished Investigator, Center for Precision Health Research, National Human Genome Research Institute.


Dr. Francis S. Collins, M.D., Ph.D., (https://www.francisscollins.com/) is the former Director of the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH), where as the longest serving director of NIH (spanning 12 years and three presidencies) he oversaw the work of the largest supporter of biomedical research in the world, from basic to clinical research.

Dr. Collins continues to serve as NIH Distinguished Investigator.
Center for Precision Health Research, at the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI — https://irp.nih.gov/pi/francis-collins).

Dr. Collins is a physician-geneticist noted for his landmark discoveries of disease genes and his leadership of the international Human Genome Project, which culminated in April 2003 with the completion of a finished sequence of the human DNA instruction book. He served as director of the National Human Genome Research Institute at the NIH from 1993–2008.

Dr. Collins’ 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 type 2 diabetes, and the gene that causes Hutchinson-Gilford progeria syndrome, a rare condition that causes premature aging.

Dr. 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 at Chapel Hill. Prior to coming to the NIH in 1993, he spent nine 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.

Dr. Collins also founded and served as President of The BioLogos Foundation (https://biologos.org/), which promotes discourse on the relationship between science and religion.

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