“Francis Collins hasn’t set foot on the National Institutes of Health’s campus in Bethesda, Md., for the last month.”
“But the NIH director says he’s working harder than he has in his nearly five decades in science — never rising later than 5 a.m. and rarely stopping work before 10 p.m. to make sure the $39 billion biomedical research agency continues to function during the coronavirus pandemic.”
“Collins’ agency has already assumed a central role in the federal government’s coronavirus response. Tony Fauci, who leads the NIH’s infectious disease research institute, has become a household name across America. President Trump visited the NIH for the first time during his presidency last month. And last week, the NIH announced a public-private partnership with 16 pharmaceutical companies called Accelerating Covid-19 Therapeutic Interventions and Vaccines, or ACTIV, meant to speed the development of therapeutics and vaccines to treat and prevent the coronavirus.”
“STAT spoke with Collins by phone last week to discuss that public-private partnership, as well as Trump’s recent tweet suggesting he might consider firing Fauci, the president’s controversial decision to defund the World Health Organization, and, of course, what the future holds for the de facto NIH house band in which Collins serves as frontman, known as “The Affordable Rock and Roll Act…” Read the full interview here.
Source: NIH Director Francis Collins on Tony Fauci, the WHO, and running a $39 billion research agency from home – By Lev Facher, April 21, 2020. STAT.
