From so simple a beginning…

Francis Collins is an unusual scientist. A physical chemist and doctor who rose to prominence as the leader of the Human Genome Project, he has recently been appointed by President Barack Obama as head of the NIH, the largest biomedical funding and research organization in the country. Collins is unusual because along with this undoubtedly [...]

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In the 1950s, after much wrangling on issues related to national defense and other expedient matters, President Eisenhower set up the President’s Science Advisory Committee (PSAC), a group of distinguished scientists that was to provide non-partisan scientific advice to presidents. The president wanted a body of advisors in the White House who were answerable to [...]

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