On March 1, 2025, former NIH director Francis Collins’ announced that he had fully resigned from the NIH, where he continued to lead a laboratory after his resignation as director. Collins gave no reason for his resignation, but it comes just before this week’s confirmation hearings for Jay Bhattacharya, who is U.S. President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the NIH and who Collins called a “fringe epidemiologist” during the COVID pandemic. It is a bitter irony that when Collins resigned as NIH director in 2021, then-President Joe Biden said that “countless researchers will aspire to follow in his footsteps.”

Jay Bhattacharya will have his work cut out for him if he wins confirmation as the next director of the U.S. NIH. Besides getting NIH committees back on track to evaluate grant applications and calming the fears of researchers and other staff who have seen about 1,200 colleagues cut from their ranks in recent weeks, Bhattacharya will face the task of rebuilding public trust in the NIH itself.

On March 1, 2025, former NIH director Francis Collins’ announced that he had fully resigned from the NIH, where he continued to lead a laboratory after his resignation as director. Collins gave no reason for his resignation, but it comes just before this week’s confirmation hearings for Jay Bhattacharya, who is U.S. President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the NIH and who Collins called a “fringe epidemiologist” during the COVID pandemic. It is a bitter irony that when Collins resigned as NIH director in 2021, then-President Joe Biden said that “countless researchers will aspire to follow in his footsteps.”

Citing recent executive orders that suggest additional cuts to the federal workforce may be in the offing, U.S. Sens. Patty Murray, D-Wash., and Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., wrote to Health and Human Services Secretary Robert Kennedy urging him to end “indiscriminate cuts that will cause lasting harm to FDA’s public health mission” and to protect the agency’s statutory obligations.

As the flurry of executive orders continues to flow from the White House, leaving in its wake chaos and confusion across the overall health care sector, Tim Opler, managing director of the global health care group at investment firm Stifel, is taking the long view and urging the biopharma sector to continue focusing on innovation.

With massive terminations, data removals, holds on U.S. government funding, cancellation of various programs and meetings, the potential for 25% tariffs on medical products and a multitude of court challenges and appeals, the dust is flying thick at the FDA, NIH and throughout the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

The scientific establishment has launched a fight back against the Trump administration and the slew of executive orders that threaten to dismantle research funding, with a warning that the next month could be critical for the future of U.S. science.

The former head of the U.S. NIH has sounded a warning that the uncertainty caused by the Trump Administration’s funding cuts and layoffs is blocking “critical work” and “paralyzing” biomedical research. “Every time we launch a new program, every time we continue to commit resources to ongoing work, those are important decisions that we make every single day, and in times like this, that decision-making is paralyzed,” said Monica Bertagnolli, who stood down as director of the NIH on Jan. 17.

The former head of the U.S. NIH has sounded a warning that the uncertainty caused by the Trump Administration’s funding cuts and layoffs is blocking “critical work” and “paralyzing” biomedical research. “Every time we launch a new program, every time we continue to commit resources to ongoing work, those are important decisions that we make every single day, and in times like this, that decision-making is paralyzed,” said Monica Bertagnolli, who stood down as director of the NIH on Jan. 17.

As part of a U.S. government-wide reduction in force aimed at restructuring and streamlining federal agencies, 5,200 Health and Human Services employees reportedly received their pink slips over the weekend, with 1,165, or 22%, of those at the NIH.