biolog

Obama has finally nominated Francis Collins for the NIH director. Rumors have been circulating for a long time that he was the prime candidate, and indeed he’s the most obvious, politically connected, pious option. The question remains, what took so long. Collins was involved with the Obama transition team and has been in the spotlight for quite some time, so presumably his vetting didn’t require too much effort.

Maybe he just needed more time to finish his book. According to the press release he’s already done with it. I keep hoping he’ll write and expose on the race to sequence the human genome that names names (as if we don’t know them already) and dishes dirt, but I highly doubt it. It’s just not his style.

This probably means a continued push for “personalized medicine,” continued funding for genome sequencing, and a continuation of Zerhouni’s push for ‘Roadmap’ style large cross-disciplinary collaborative projects. I have no idea what specific kinds of research outside of genomics he’ll find most appealing. Collins obviously has more experience with genetic disease than infectious disease.

I know that Francis Collins inspires great loyalty and affection in the people who have worked for him. He seems to have done a good job managing the human genome project and has kept reasonably good relations with some pretty bristly personalities. He definitely has the political chops and connections to fight for NIH funding on the hill, so overall I think it’s probably a good choice for people who look to NIH for funding.