Obama Names Geneticist to Lead Health Agency

President Barack Obama said Wednesday he planned to name geneticist Francis Collins to head the US National Institutes of Health, the top US government biomedical and health-related research agency.

"My administration is committed to promoting scientific integrity and pioneering scientific research and I am confident that Dr Francis Collins will lead the NIH to achieve these goals," said Obama.

"Dr Collins is one of the top scientists in the world, and his groundbreaking work has changed the very ways we consider our health and examine disease," he said in a statement released by the White House.

Collins, a physician-geneticist noted for his landmark discoveries of disease genes and his leadership of the Human Genome Project, served as director of the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) at the National Institutes of Health from 1993-2008.

Source: AFP
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