The one whom I’d like to hold up this month as a shining candle is a person who seems to be an extraordinary combination of intellectual prowess and spiritual depth, somebody whom we would always admire, applaud and praise God for.
But you may not have heard of Dr Francis Collins, the Director of the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH). He is not as widely known as Dr Anthony Fauci, who has been interviewed dozens of times by the American TV channels, on the country’s fight against COVID 19 that has killed more than 500,000 Americans in less than a year. But, in fact, it is Dr Francis Collins, who, as the boss of Fauci, oversees his contribution and that of so many others to the fight against the killer pandemic. The media have highlighted the fact that the way Collins has handled his job as the Director of NIH will help his country not merely contain this virus soon but also be prepared for the next pandemic.
Francis Sellers Collins, 70, is a physician-geneticist who discovered the genes associated with a number of diseases and led the Human Genome Project. Homeschooled by his mother during his childhood, Collins was interested in science from the beginning. In 1970 he received a B.S. from the University of Virginia, and went on to Yale University to earn an M.S. and a Ph.D. in physical chemistry. But he realized he wanted to be a doctor – not just a scientist. “I’m a physician scientist,” he says. “It’s interesting when you read the life of Christ how much of his time he spent healing the sick. There must have been a reason for that—he was modelling for us what it is we are intended to do by following his path.”
After earning an M.D. at the University of North Carolina, Collins joined the University of Michigan as an assistant professor. His work there earned him a reputation as one of the world’s foremost genetics researchers. While leading the National Human Genome Research Institute, Collins was elected to the Institute of Medicine and the National Academy of Sciences. In 2005, Collins and his colleague, Craig Venter, were honored as two of “America’s Best Leaders” by U.S. News & World Report and the Harvard University Center for Public Leadership.
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Fr M A Joe Antony SJ
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