Obama health nominee has impacted state

OKLAHOMA CITY, July 10, 2009 – Francis Collins, M.D., Ph.D., may not be from Oklahoma, but he’s made plenty of impact at the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation.

A world-renowned geneticist, Collins was nominated this week by President Barack Obama to run the National Institutes of Health and is a proponent of “big science,” said OMRF President Stephen Prescott, M.D.

“Dr. Collins is smart, articulate and energetic and he’s really brought a new approach to the idea of ‘big science,’” said Prescott, who worked with Collins while on the advisory board of the National Human Genome Research Institute. “He injected modern managerial methods into large-scale scientific projects and included people from different scientific backgrounds to get the job done.”

Collins is best known as a leader on the Human Genome Project, which first sequenced the human genetic code. That work is the foundation upon many OMRF projects, Prescott said.

“A lot of our research programs have benefitted from his work. All of science has,” he said.

About half of OMRF’s funding comes from the NIH. Some of the largest grants and contracts include:

• $13 million for molecular and immunologic analysis of anthrax
• $11.5 million to support the research of junior scientists
• $8.1 million for influenza research
• $6.7 million for a lupus multiplex registry and repository
• $2.6 million to establish the Oklahoma Rheumatic Disease Research Core Center

About OMRF
OMRF (omrf.org) is an independent, nonprofit biomedical research institute dedicated to understanding and developing more effective treatments for human diseases. Chartered in 1946, its scientists focus on such critical research areas as Alzheimer’s disease, cancer, lupus and cardiovascular disease.

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