Image
Francis S. Collins, MD, PhD, served as the Director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) from August 2009, through December 2021. Collins is a physician-geneticist noted for his landmark discoveries of disease genes and his leadership of the Human Genome Project, which successfully completed the first sequence of the human DNA instruction book in 2003. Collins retired on December 18, 2021.
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 to lead the National Human Genome Research Institute, he spent nine years on the faculty of the University of Michigan. He is an elected member of the Institute of Medicine and the National Academy of Sciences.
Collins was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2007 and the National Medal of Science in 2009. On April 22, 2010, Collins was a co-recipient of the Albany Medical Center Prize in Medicine and Biomedical Research.
Collins served as a member of the PCORI Board of Governors from September 2010 – December 2021, when he retired as Director of NIH. He also was a member of the Research Transformation Committee.
Updated: December 2021