Francis Collins wins prestigious Public Welfare Medal from National Academy of Sciences

By Leonardo Blair, Senior Reporter Tuesday, February 10, 2026

Former National Institutes of Health Director Francis Collins and Evangelical geneticist Francis Collins has won the 2026 National Academy of Sciences Public Welfare Medal.

The award is considered the “most prestigious” endorsement from the private, non-profit institution established by Congress in 1863 to serve as an official advisor to the U.S. government on science and technology.

The award is presented annually to “honor extraordinary use of science for the public good,” the NAS said in an announcement.

“Francis Collins has helped shape the way we conduct large-scale biomedical science,” National Academy of Sciences Home Secretary Nancy Andrews said in a statement. “His visionary leadership of the Human Genome Project, combined with decades of public service, exemplifies the profound ways science can improve human health and welfare.”

NAS President Marcia McNutt described Collins’ career as a “model of scientific excellence applied for the common good.”

“Through his scientific insight, ethical leadership, and public advocacy, Dr. Collins has strengthened public trust in science and demonstrated how discovery can serve humanity,” McNutt said.

Collins, who is recognized as one of the most prominent scientists in the world, led the Human Genome Project to its successful completion in 2003. The project resulted in the mapping and sequencing of the 3 billion DNA letters that make up the human genetic instruction book.

The Christian geneticist, who led the NIH through three presidential administrations, was appointed to the post during the Obama administration and retired in 2021. Throughout his tenure at the NIH, Collins is credited with strengthening federal biomedical research and guiding responses to public health challenges, such as the Ebola and COVID-19 epidemics.

Despite his Evangelical identity, Collins was embraced widely by the secular establishment and has backed policy positions and research that put him at odds with conservative Christians. His government role put him in the thick of cultural and political controversies. 

The journal Science noted in 2019 that Collins "followed Obama’s order to loosen rules for stem cell research," which some Christians oppose. He has also defended fetal tissue research despite criticism from pro-life organizations.

Following his retirement in 2021, he defended fetal tissue research in an interview with The Christian Post, saying people should “recognize, after all, that people have elective terminations of pregnancy every day, and those materials are being discarded.”

“Suppose it was possible on a rare instance for something that's about to be discarded with full consent after the decision by the mother to be used to develop something that might save somebody's life,” the geneticist reasoned.

“In that case, I think even God could look at that and go, ‘OK, it's not the thing that I would have wanted to see happening. Still, as an ethical choice between discarding or using for some benevolent purpose, maybe that's defensible.’ Now that will make some people uneasy.”

Collins' role in shaping the federal government's response to the COVID-19 pandemic has also come under scrutiny.

As the NIH director during the height of the pandemic, Collins was accused by critics of stifling scientific debate as the world learned more about the virus and how to fight it. Collins opposed and called for a "takedown" of the Great Barrington Declaration, a document calling for an end to COVID-19 lockdowns, citing “grave concerns” over public health, though many of the document's assertions have since been proven correct. He called the declaration “fringe” and claimed that its premises were dangerously misleading.

Others have questioned research funded by the NIH during Collins' leadership, including the University of Pittsburgh study "Development of humanized mouse and rat models with full-thickness human skin and autologous immune cells." The NIH also funded a $5.7 million grant to pediatric gender clinics studying the effects of "early medical treatment" on minors who identify as transgender.

Collins and other NIH leaders have faced criticism for the agency's grant to EcoHealth Alliance, which helped fund a “limited experiment” involving coronavirus at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in Wuhan, China.

Collins has championed funding for Alzheimer’s research, initiated the BRAIN Initiative to advance neuroscience, launched the Cancer Moonshot program to accelerate cancer research and treatment, and pioneered a major initiative in precision health that included the launch of All of Us, the largest longitudinal cohort study ever mounted by NIH. 

Before his work at the NIH, he also served as a professor of internal medicine and human genetics at the University of Michigan. At the university, he was known as the “gene hunter” for pioneering the technique of “positional cloning” to pinpoint disease-related genes the foundation noted. His research helped lead to the discovery of the genes responsible for cystic fibrosis and neurofibromatosis.

Collins was awarded the 2020 Templeton Prize and $1.3 million for using science to advocate for the “integration of faith and reason.”

Collins is expected to be presented with the Public Welfare Medal on April 26 during the Academy’s 163rd annual meeting. Past recipients of the award include Alan Alda, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Anthony S. Fauci, Bill and Melinda Gates, Ismail Serageldin, Neal Lane, Norman Borlaug, William T. Golden, Maxine F. Singer, C. Everett Koop, and Carl Sagan.