Collins is notable to OA advocates because the Human Genome Project was an early, prominent provider of OA to its data. Collins also defended the National Institutes of Health's OA PubChem database against criticisms from competing TA databases.
He didn't provide a specific reason for his resignation. Collins, 58, has said he'd like to write a book on personalized medicine, and left the door open to future jobs. Bob Grant, blogging at The Scientist, speculates that Collins could be in the consideration for NIH director should the position become available (i.e., if current director Elias Zerhouni resigns or if the U.S.'s new president decides to make a different appointment). Jonathan Eisen blogs,
... [M]y guess is he is being recruited by one of the presidential candidates to be some sort of advisor. ...
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.
