Dr. Francis Collins remembers playing guitar and singing Bob Dylan’s “The Times They Are a-Changin’” at a dinner party in front of three U.S. Supreme Court chief justices — not long after the landmark 2015 decision to allow same-sex marriage nationwide.
Dr. Francis Collins
Collins, the director of the National Institutes of Health, an organization that conducts medical and health research, made a group of UF medical students and faculty burst into laughter Monday morning as he boasted about n quelling the tension between Justices Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy and Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
“It went over pretty well,” Collins said. “Scalia was chewing on a cigar, he seemed happy.”
Collins, who’s been in his position for more than eight years, spoke for about 45 minutes and touched on everything from the need for more NIH funding to the nationwide opioid crisis. He was invited by U.S. House Rep. Ted Yoho’s office to speak on campus.
David Guzick, UF’s senior vice president for health affairs, asked Collins questions during the Q&A, which was held in the North Learning Studies Room of the Harrell Medical Education Building. About 200, including UF President Kent Fuchs and Yoho, sat in the main room. After it filled, 250 moved down the hall to watch on a livestream.
The head of a $37 billion cutting-edge public health agency told the medical community members how important their work is.
“We all share this sense of how to protect the next generation of investigators,” he said.
Despite funding cuts over the past decade and fears of how the Trump administration would treat his agency, Collins said he’s optimistic.
The NIH is set to receive an 8 percent funding increase in the $1.3 trillion spending bill Trump approved March 23, according to the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Early last year, the White House initially proposed a 22 percent cut to NIH funding, but Congress rejected the proposal and pushed for funding increases that finally made it into the newly signed bill.
Yoho weighed in during one of the questions. He said funding for NIH and STEM funding matters.
“It’s the research today that creates the jobs and cures we need for tomorrow,” he said.
President Fuchs said he’s glad Collins came to UF because it allows researchers, students and faculty members to give the NIH a face rather than see it as a “masked entity.”
“He was very charismatic and funny, talking about he plays guitar. I think that’s important for students,” Fuchs said.
Medical student Dr. Justin Rossi went to Collins’ event because he was able to complete his doctoral research in neurology and Parkinson’s disease with NIH grant money.
“These are uncertain times as far as funding,” he said. “It’s our projects, as students, that would be affected.”
Contact David Hoffman at dhoffman@alligator.org. Follow him on Twitter at @hoffdavid123.
About 250 people watch a livestream of National Institutes of Health Director Dr. Francis Collins speak to UF students and faculty in the North Learning Studies Room of the Harrell Medical Education Building Monday morning. Collins spoke about the importance of funding STEM research.
