Endocrine Insider
August 19, 2009

(See full issue)

On Monday, August 17, Francis S. Collins, MD PhD, was sworn in as the 16th director of the National Institutes of Health.  Prior to the swearing-in ceremony, Dr. Collins addressed a crowd of NIH employees on the NIH campus in Bethesda, MD, at a town-hall meeting.  In his address, Dr. Collins assured the audience that, despite his background as head of the National Human Genome Research Institute, he will not prioritize “big science” over investigator-initiated work.  He also outlined five areas, or themes, in which he sees great opportunity in the near future:

•    Using high-throughput technologies to rapidly advance basic scientific knowledge
•    Translating basic research into clinical practice
•    Putting science to work in healthcare reform
•    Focusing on global health, engaging in research in collaboration with other countries
•    Reinvigorating and empowering the biomedical research workforce

Dr. Collins closed his formal presentation with promises to focus his full energy on all of NIH, to work hard to represent NIH as the crown jewel of the US government, to push for all decisions at and regarding NIH to be based on science, to promote a culture of informality and friendliness at the agency, and to promote an atmosphere of trust and openness within the agency and with the public.

The meeting ended with a question-and-answer session.  The archived webcast is available at http://videocast.nih.gov/PastEvents.asp.