National Institutes of Health Director Francis Collins plans to step down by the end of the year, the agency announced Tuesday.

What Happened: Collins has served three decades at the NIH and has headed it for over 12 years. He is the longest-serving presidentially appointed NIH director.

“It has been an incredible privilege to lead this great agency for more than a decade,” said Collins. “I fundamentally believe, however, that no single person should serve in the position too long, and that it’s time to bring in a new scientist to lead the NIH into the future.”

Why It Matters: Collins assumed the role of the NIH Director under President Barack Obama on Aug. 17, 2009. 

The physician-geneticist was involved in the launch of several measures related to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic including  Accelerating COVID-19 Therapeutic Interventions and Vaccines (ACTIV) — a public-private partnership that developed a coordinated research strategy for prioritizing and speeding developments of promising treatments and vaccines.

Collins told Fox News that his departure from the role was unrelated to the controversies over the origin of the coronavirus. “People are always looking for some kind of cause and effect here. I want to absolutely assure you and anybody else listening that that had nothing to do with my decision,” said Collins.

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Photo: Courtesy of National Human Genome Research Institute via Wikimedia