STAT+: NIH announces six new acting institute directors, many of them filling posts of ousted predecessors
The NIH announced six acting directors to run institutes, many to fill vacancies created by the ouster of predecessors
The National Institutes of Health on Friday announced six acting directors to run institutes, many to fill vacancies created by the ouster of predecessors as part of the Trump administration’s unprecedented reshaping of federal scientific agencies.
In an email from the NIH Executive Secretariat obtained by STAT, the agency said it was naming Courtney Aklin to run the National Institute of Nursing Research; Alison Cernich to run the National Institute on Child Health and Human Development; Monica Webb Hooper to run the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities; Andrea Beckel-Mitchener to run the National Institute of Mental Health; Carolyn Hutter to run the National Human Genome Research Institute; and Jeff Taubenberger to run the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
The NIH email encourages staff to “please welcome these distinguished colleagues as they begin their new roles.” But the future of some of these acting directors is uncertain. That’s because a draft Trump administration budget leaked on April 16 revealed plans to cut NIH’s spending by 40% and to reorganize the agency’s 27 institutes and centers into eight. That plan involves eliminating four centers, including NINR and NIMHD, and folding NIMH and two other institutes into a new National Institute of Behavioral Health.
