US President Donald Trump, then the President-elect, nominated Jay Bhattacharya as the 18th NIH Director in November last year.
Indian-American scientist Jay Bhattacharya has been appointed as the Director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the leading health research and funding body in the United States. He was nominated as the 18th NIH Director in November last year by then-President-elect Donald Trump.
A Stanford University professor specialised in Health Policy, Bhattacharya secured the position with a vote count of 53-47 during the initial roll call session of the 119th Congress on Tuesday, as per the official US Senate website.
What is Jay Bhattacharya’s role as NIH Director?
US Senator from Kentucky Mitch McConnell took to X and said, “Voted today to confirm Dr. Jay Bhattacharya to lead the National Institutes of Health. With an extensive background in medical research, I expect @DrJBhattacharya to provide sound leadership at the @NIH.”
In his new role, Bhattacharya will collaborate with the newly appointed US Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr to elevate the NIH back to its position as the premier institution for medical research, said the website, according to news agency ANI.
In a statement on Tuesday, Stanford Medicine “proudly” congratulated Bhattacharya on his appointment and called his commitment to public service “commendable”. “As an institution, we are staunch supporters of the NIH’s mission, which continues to advance the frontiers of medical knowledge and unlock new possibilities for health improvement,” it said.
Who is Jay Bhattacharya?
According to an earlier nomination statement from US President Donald Trump, Bhattacharya is a professor of health policy at Stanford University, a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research, and a senior fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, Stanford Freeman Spogli Institute, and the Hoover Institution.
He also directs Stanford’s Centre for Demography and Economics of Health and Ageing, and his research emphasises the role of government programs, biomedical innovation, and economics.
Bhattacharya is a co-author of the Great Barrington Declaration, an alternative to lockdowns proposed in October 2020. His peer-reviewed research has been published in Economics, Statistics, Legal, Medical, Public Health, and Health Policy Journals.
He holds an MD and PhD in Economics from Stanford University.
(With agencies input)
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