Chief envisions NIH ‘doctor to the world’
Geneticist says he wants practical focus for agency
WASHINGTON - An influential geneticist who wears his faith on his sleeve says that as the new director of the National Institutes of Health he won’t inject his religious convictions into medical research while pushing cutting-edge science for the sake of better bedside care.
“The NIH director needs to focus on science,’’ Dr. Francis Collins said in an interview yesterday. “I have no religious agenda for the NIH.’’
In taking the reins of the NIH, Collins - an evangelical Christian best known for unraveling the human genetic code - said he wants a practical focus for the nation’s premier research agency: that new discoveries may even help save precious health care dollars.
“We should be completely bold about pushing that agenda,’’ Collins said, saying the goal was to advance not just US health, but global health, too.
“Here we are at a circumstance where I think our country is seeking maybe to redefine our image a bit in the world, from being the soldier to the world to being perhaps the doctor to the world,’’ he said.
The Bush administration drew criticism for allowing religious ideology to guide some decision-making, such as curbs on the NIH’s funding of research involving embryonic stem cells.
Collins is known for finding common ground between belief in God and science, without letting his faith influence his 15 years of research at the NIH. He led the Human Genome Project that, along with a competing private company, mapped the genetic code that he famously called “the book of human life.’’ Remarkably for Washington, Collins’s team was ahead of schedule and under budget.
The folksy Collins, who explains the complexities of DNA in language the average person can understand, at the time called it “awe-inspiring to realize that we have caught the first glimpse of our own instruction book, previously known only to God.’’
He left NIH last year to, among other things, work with Barack Obama’s presidential campaign - and to help found the BioLogos Foundation, a website formed by scientists who said they want to bridge gaps between the two groups. Collins, 59, said he resigned from the website the day before assuming his new job, but was proud of its work.
“I do think the current battle that’s going on in our culture between extreme voices is not a productive one,’’ he said. “The chance to play some kind of useful role in that conversation by pointing out the potential harmony was something that seemed to be making some inroads.’’
In his office yesterday an eager Collins outlined his goals for the NIH. Look for an emphasis on the new field of personalized medicine, which promises to use a person’s own genes to customize ways of staying healthy and fighting disease, rather than today’s one-size-fits-all advice.
It’s already starting. Thousands of breast cancer survivors undergo chemotherapy they don’t need in order to be sure that the few patients with particularly aggressive disease are treated. New genetic tests are cutting back on the unneeded chemotherapy, and saving at least $100 million a year in health care costs, Collins said.
Also look for an emphasis on stem cell research. Under Obama’s new embryonic stem cells policy, the agency is deciding which of the 700 known embryonic stem cell batches are eligible for taxpayer-funded research.
