Francis Collins
Distinguished Investigator, National Human Genome Research Institute, National Institutes of Health; Former Director, National Institutes of Health
Francis Collins, distinguished investigator at the National Human Genome Institute at the NIH, led the Human Genome Project that read out the first copy of the human DNA instruction book in 2003 and served three U.S. presidents as NIH director. His own research has produced insights about cystic fibrosis, diabetes, and progeria, a rare disorder of premature aging. With soprano Renée Fleming and others, he co-leads an effort to bring together musicians, music therapists, and neuroscientists to understand music’s powerful impact on human emotion and how that knowledge can enhance music’s healing powers. Collins’s long-standing interest in the relationship between science and faith is reflected in his authorship of “The Language of God” and the upcoming “The Road to Wisdom.” He founded BioLogos, a meeting place for individuals interested in the interface between God’s word and God’s world, and was awarded the 2020 Templeton Prize.
Previously
Few people are more deeply steeped in science than Francis Collins, former director of the National Institutes of Health and the groundbreaking Human Genome Project, and forme...
Science is confirming what artists have long known—the arts change the body, brain, and behavior. An interdisciplinary new field known as neuroarts is building that evidence a...
Join us to kickoff Aspen Ideas: Health 2024 with welcome remarks from Aspen Institute leaders, 10 Big Ideas from Aspen Ideas: Health speakers, and a special performance from t...
Amazing discoveries are happening in the garages and high school science classes of young pioneers. A 17-year-old invented color-changing stitches, dyed with beet juice, to pr...
When voices rise together in song, dancers tango across the floor, or a painter takes to a canvas, they may be engaging in a hobby, a passion, or a career. Most likely, they a...
The recent leaps of science—sequencing the human genome, advancing the world-changing technology of CRISPR, deepening knowledge of the brain—owe much to Francis Collins’s bril...