Francis S. Collins, M.D., Ph.D. is the Director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). In that role he oversees the work of the largest supporter of biomedical research in the world, spanning the spectrum from basic to clinical research.

Dr. Collins, a physician-geneticist noted for his landmark discoveries of disease genes and his leadership of the international Human Genome Project, served as director of the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) at the NIH from 1993-2008. The Human Genome Project culminated in April 2003 with the completion of a finished sequence of the human DNA instruction book.

Dr. Collins' own 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 cause of 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.

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