National Institutes of Health Director Francis Collins is planning to announce his resignation from the agency on Tuesday, three people familiar with the matter told Politico. He will step down by the end of the year, The Washington Post adds.
Collins, 71, has led the NIH for the last 12 years, making him the longest-serving director and the first to be part of more than one presidential administration. A graduate of the medical school at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Collins is a physician-geneticist who identified the genetic mutations for cystic fibrosis. He was an atheist, but converted to Christianity as a young adult, and in 2006 he wrote the book The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief.
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