Francis S. Collins, a former director of the National Human Genome Research Institute, may be in line to head the National Institutes of Health in the Obama administration.
A report in Science magazine’s ScienceInsider blog cites Alan O. Trounson, president of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, in San Francisco, as saying he has heard repeated mention of Dr. Collins for the post of NIH director.
Dr. Collins, asked about the matter at a meeting last week of an Obama transition team, said, “No comment,” ScienceInsider reported.
Comment. This would be a superb appointment. Collins has the respect of researchers in the field and he's a strong supporter of OA. He's the person most responsible for OA to the results of the human genome project, as well as a defender of PubChem against the ACS. As he told the Baltimore Sun (April 7, 2005) when Celera made its own genome data OA:
"This data just wants to be public," said a pleased Collins, who is also director of the National Human Genome Research Institute. "It's the kind of fundamental information that has no direct connection to a product, it's information that everybody wants, and it will find its way into the public."
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.
