The new director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has established its priorities today spend his first day of work talking to his staff and journalists . geneticist Francis Collins said he plans to emphasize five "themes", including the reform of health care and translating research into medicine. Collins also sought to allay perhaps the biggest concerns about his appointment last month by President Barack Obama, saying he will protect science investigator and that his religious interests will not influence how he runs the agency.
Collins, who in 08 resigned after 15 years as director of the Genome Institute of NIH, has spoken publicly about his ideas for the first time since his name surfaced as the leading candidate to head the agency. At a town hall meeting with NIH staff, he said he now has a "daunting, and perhaps the most amazing exciting task than anyone could ever ask for." He assured his audience that "the pillar" is the individual researcher; anyone who thinks differently "need look no further" than the intramural program of the Genome Institute, where research is "driven by ideas" and that he will keep his laboratory.
At the same time , big biology projects are one of the five priorities of Collins. It will promote broadband technologies in areas that are "ready for this kind of approach," such as gene transcription and studies autism. He plans to focus on translational research, as a new NIH program to develop drugs for rare diseases. The other three themes are reforming health care, including research comparing treatments, which he NIH "should encompass"; global health; and "empower [ing] community of biomedical research," which he said includes sustainable, by encouraging young researchers, and funding of innovative research.
Collins said that "employment a 'faces what happens when the $ 10.4 billion the NIH received as part of this year's stimulus plan is taking place in 2011. NIH faces a "perfect storm," he said, partly by a flood of more than 20,000 stimulus grant applications funded, which could bring the historically low success rate if the agency's budget does not exceed the current $ 30.6 billion. He will argue more funding telling Congress that NIH funding boosts local economies and focusing on 'the themes that clearly resonate. "He noted that $ 40 billion, some groups are pushing for, is" in [the] envelope "that NIH would need to restore losses to inflation since 03.
Collins also addressed concerns he said he" honored many pages of the blogosphere "as well the op-ed page of the New York Times, that his evangelical Christian beliefs could influence the way he directs NIH. He said he resigned BioLogos the foundation to explore science and faith he started. He told reporters that the "personal interests ... not to interfere with the judgments that I'll need to do as the Director of NIH."
Regarding management issues, Collins chose to keep Raynard Kington as his principal deputy director. Kington held that position until becoming interim director after NIH Elias Zerhouni resigned last fall. Collins plans to hold off on the search for a permanent director of the Institute of alcoholism because of an ongoing discussion about whether it should merge with the NIH institute addiction. Asked about the intramural program of the NIH, it is "resistant to the idea that [the program] is in the need for some sort of dramatic redo, "but considering the possibility of creating a pool of money intramural that as the NIH common Fund could be used to fund cutting quickly research.
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