Francis Collins led the US response to the Covid pandemic. Now, he tells Stephen Tomkins, he is searching for the cure for polarisation

Francis Collins is one of America’s leading public scientists. He led the Human Genome Project, the largest collaborative biological enterprise ever, which mapped human genes by 2003. For 12 years, he led the National Institutes of Health, the main office for US government funding of public health, investing $48bn a year. He ran the partnership which developed the Moderna vaccine for Covid in record time. He is also an evangelical Christian who is appalled by the way that evangelicalism has been coopted politically in the States.

So when I talked to him a day after Mr Trump won the November election, one might have expected to hear dismay, especially considering the record and rhetoric of leading Republicans on public health…

The Road to Wisdom is published in the UK by Hodder & Stoughton. To pledge, visit braverangels.org/road-to-wisdom-pledge

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This is an extract from an article published in the December 2024/January 2025 edition of Reform

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