Renowned geneticist Francis Collins retires from NIH, urging 'respect' for embattled workers
Source: Associated Press
HEALTH
Renowned geneticist Francis Collins retires from NIH, urging ‘respect’ for embattled workers
BY LAURAN NEERGAARD
Updated 3:50 PM EST, March 1, 2025
WASHINGTON (AP) — Dr. Francis Collins, a renowned geneticist and former longtime director of the National Institutes of Health, announced Saturday that he has retired, leaving an agency being upended by budget cuts and layoffs.
Collins — a guitar-playing researcher and evangelical Christian known for finding common ground between religion and science — gave no reason for his abrupt departure. He issued a statement that he’d been honored with a long career at an agency “rightfully called the crown jewel of the federal government for decades.”
He came to the NIH in 1993 to lead the Human Genome Project, which in 2003 completed mapping the human DNA instruction book — two years ahead of schedule and $400 million under budget, Collins noted in his statement Saturday.
Collins, 74, was the NIH’s director for 12 years and under three presidents — Barack Obama, Donald Trump and Joe Biden.
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Read more: https://apnews.com/article/nih-francis-collins-retires-research-embattled-workers-34c362b608e21ff2fb5477b4b108532a
I thought he had retired a while back.