I News Conference Webcast Biosketch

Francis S. Collins, M.D., Ph.D.

Francis S. Collins, M.D., Ph.D., a physician-geneticist noted for his landmark discoveries of disease genes, and his visionary leadership of the Human Genome Project (HGP), is director of the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI).

As head of NHGRI, Dr. Collins has overseen the HGP, the multidisciplinary, multi-institutional, international effort to map and sequence all of the human DNA and then determine aspects of its function. Many consider this project to be the most significant scientific undertaking of our time. The ultimate goal is to improve human health.

Dr. Collins earned a B.S. in chemistry at the University of Virginia in 1970 and a Ph.D. in physical chemistry at Yale University in 1974. Collins recognized that a revolution was on the horizon in molecular biology and genetics. He changed fields and enrolled in medical school at the University of North Carolina, where he earned an M.D. in 1977.

From 1978 to 1981, Dr. Collins served a residency and chief residency in internal medicine at North Carolina Memorial Hospital in Chapel Hill. He then returned to Yale, where he was named a Fellow in Human Genetics at the medical school from 1981 to1984. During that time, he developed innovative methods of crossing large stretches of DNA to identify disease genes.

After joining the University of Michigan in 1984 in a position that would eventually lead to a Professorship of Internal Medicine and Human Genetics, Dr. Collins heightened his reputation as a relentless gene hunter. That gene-hunting approach, which he named "positional cloning," has developed into a powerful component of modern molecular genetics.

Tapped to take on the leadership of the HGP, Dr. Collins accepted an invitation in 1993 to become director of the National Center for Human Genome Research, which became NHGRI in 1997. As director, he oversees the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium and many other aspects of what he has called "an adventure that beats going to the moon or splitting the atom."

In 1994, Dr. Collins founded NHGRI's Division of Intramural Research (DIR), an intramural program of genome research that has developed into one of the nation's premier research centers in human genetics.

He has been a strong advocate for protecting the privacy of genetic information and has served as a national leader in efforts to prohibit gene-based insurance discrimination. Building on his own experiences as a physician volunteer in a rural missionary hospital in Nigeria, Dr. Collins is also very interested in opening avenues for genome research to benefit the health of people living in developing nations.

Dr. Collins' accomplishments have been recognized by numerous awards and honors, including election to the Institute of Medicine and the National Academy of Sciences.