Francis S. Collins: Transformer and translator for NIH

The decision of Dr. Francis S. Collins (Figure 1) to step down at the end of this year is a blow to the great biomedical science enterprise he has so ably led. And yet it is a rational step in which he will once again deploy his scientific skills in the laboratory, a setting in which his track record is as distinguished as his U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) directorship, notwithstanding the obvious differences in the two domains. Under...