Stanford-trained physician and economist Jay Bhattacharya has officially been nominated by President-elect Donald Trump to serve as the next director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
Trump made the announcement in a Truth Social post, writing: “I am thrilled to nominate Jay Bhattacharya, MD, PhD, to serve as Director of the National Institutes of Health. Dr. Bhattacharya will work in cooperation with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to direct the Nation’s Medical Research, and to make important discoveries that will improve Health, and save lives.”
Bhattacharya met this week with Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who was nominated by Trump to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the NIH and other health agencies, and impressed the former presidential candidate with his ideas to overhaul the NIH, which oversees U.S. biomedical research, according to a report by The Washington Post.
The NIH also awards funding grants to hundreds of thousands of researchers, oversees clinical trials on its Maryland campus and supports a variety of efforts to develop drugs and therapeutics.
The nominee for the NIH director must be confirmed by the Senate, which will have a Republican majority beginning in January.
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Stanford-trained physician and economist Jay Bhattacharya is reportedly the presumptive favorite to be nominated by President-elect Donald Trump to serve as the next director of the NIH. (Getty Images)
Bhattacharya has called for moving the NIH’s focus toward funding more innovative research and cutting the influence of some of its longest-serving officials.
Kennedy Jr. has played a central role in choosing top health care staff and deputies for Trump’s next administration, including Johns Hopkins surgeon Marty Makary, who Trump selected to lead the Food and Drug Administration, and internal medicine physician and former Republican congressman from Florida Dave Weldon, who Trump chose to…
