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Health officials with Suburban Hospital and elsewhere have praised the White House's choice to lead the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, saying his leadership, management and scientific experience will be crucial for NIH going forward.

President Obama's announcement on July 8 that he will soon nominate Dr. Francis Collins, former leader of the Human Genome Project that mapped man's DNA, was met with positive reaction from medical officials such as Chi Dang, senior vice dean of research at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

Dang said Collins' ability to handle the Genome Project both as a scientist and manager makes him well-positioned to lead the campus' team of researchers, and also effectively set goals for the $10 billion in stimulus money budgeted for NIH through September 2010.

"I think he's extremely well positioned to do that," Dang said. "He has a lot of gravitas in science, a lot of respect from the academic community."

In addition to Collins' experience in the scientific community, he is well-positioned to facilitate new relationships between off-campus scientists and NIH researchers and resources that could help programs like Suburban Hospital's research on heart disease at its Bethesda campus, Dang said. Johns Hopkins Health System recently purchased Suburban Hospital.

"As an organization that has collaborated with the National Institutes of Health on heart and stroke research for more than a decade, we look forward to welcoming Dr. Collins as its new director," said Dr. Eugene Passamani, vice president of medical affairs at Suburban Hospital and the facility's liaison to NIH, in a statement.

Collins, who has yet to be officially nominated by the Obama administration and must be approved by Congress, previously worked at NIH from 1993 to 2008 as the director of the National Human Genome Research Institute, where he led the Genome Project. His work at NIH has involved research on cystic fibrosis, adult onset diabetes and Huntington's disease. Collins was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2007.

"Francis Collins is a wonderful scientist and an inspirational leader and champion for health science," said Dr. Curt Civin, a stem cell researcher with University of Maryland School of Medicine, in an e-mail. "I am personally thrilled with his appointment, having long thought he was the clear choice. He will be great for science, medicine, NIH, the region, and the nation."

In addition to his professional qualifications and leadership skills, Collins is also well-liked and trusted by colleagues, according to Guy Fogleman, executive director of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB), located just a few minutes north of NIH on Rockville Pike in Bethesda. FASEB, which represents 90,000 biomedical researchers, includes some scientists on its Bethesda campus who worked with Collins on the Genome Project and think highly of his interpersonal skills, Fogleman said.

"It's a very large, complex organization," Fogleman said of NIH. "But because of the fact that Dr. Collins spent time on the campus in a leadership role…he knows what he's getting into."

Fogleman said one of Collins' main challenges will not only be managing the stimulus money effectively, but also making sure NIH adjusts appropriately when that money is used up and no longer available.