6 things to know about Jay Bhattacharya, Trump's pick to lead the National Institutes of Health
Would 'restructure' the NIH
Bhattacharya emerged as a top candidate to lead the NIH earlier this month after meeting with Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trump's nominee to head the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and discussed ideas on how to overhaul the NIH, sources close to the matter told The Washington Post.
The professor has long called for changes at NIH and said in an interview earlier this year he lost "almost all confidence" in the American public health establishment.
He co-authored a working paper in 2018 with University of Waterloo economist Mikko Packalen questioning if NIH adequately funds "innovative science that tries out new ideas," stating that "many have questioned the NIH's ability to fulfill this aim."
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They feared that "NIH funding has become more conservative despite initiatives to increase funding for innovative projects."
"I would restructure the NIH to allow there to be many more centers of power, so that you couldn't have a small number of scientific bureaucrats, dominating a field for a very long time," Bhattacharya told The Post in a January 2024 interview.
Ryan Foley is a reporter for The Christian Post. He can be reached at: ryan.foley@christianpost.com
