Dr. Francis Collins served as NIH director for 12 years across three administrations (Obama, Trump, Biden), both Democrat and Republican. He brought enormous scientific vision to the role, along with a level of connection and humanity rare in any leader. A year and a half ago, he left NIH, not by his own choice. And now, he joins Claudia to ask: How do we make the case for future investments in science in a world of distrust?
Dr. Collins and Claudia cover:
Why he believes faith and science belong together
What the Human Genome Project teaches us about taking on big scientific challenges
What listening to people who felt harmed by the COVID response taught him about trust
Dr. Collins says, for him, science and religion can walk hand-in-hand because they answer different questions:
“Science is the right way to answer questions about the natural world, but it doesn't help you so much with other questions like is there a God? Why am I here? Why is there something instead of nothing? That's where faith, if you're gonna get answers at all, comes to the rescue of the silence of science. And I think it's exciting to be able to consider all those questions. And if, as it is now in my worldview, the natural world is the handiwork of a creator, then studying the natural world is also getting a glimpse of God's mind, which means science and faith are in fact connected to each other and the laboratory maybe is… And even if you want to say what you're doing in science is to uncover with awe things about creation, this feels like worship.”
Francis S. Collins, M.D., Ph.D., is the former director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). As the longest serving director of NIH — spanning 12 years and three presidencies — he oversaw the work of the largest supporter of biomedical research in the world, from basic to clinical research.
Dr. Collins is a physician-geneticist noted for his landmark discoveries of disease genes and his leadership of the international Human Genome Project, which culminated in April 2003 with the completion of a finished sequence of the human DNA instruction book. He served as director of the National Human Genome Research Institute at the NIH from 1993-2008.
Dr. Collins' research laboratory has discovered a number of important genes, including those responsible for cystic fibrosis, neurofibromatosis, Huntington's disease, a familial endocrine cancer syndrome, and most recently, genes for type 2 diabetes, and the gene that causes Hutchinson-Gilford progeria syndrome, a rare condition that causes premature aging.
Dr. Collins received a B.S. in chemistry from the University of Virginia, a Ph.D. in physical chemistry from Yale University, and an M.D. with honors from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Prior to coming to the NIH in 1993, he spent nine years on the faculty of the University of Michigan, where he was a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator. He is an elected member of the Institute of Medicine and the National Academy of Sciences. Dr. Collins was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in November 2007 and the National Medal of Science in 2009.
