Dr. Francis Collins was confirmed by the Senate by unanimous consent on Aug. 7 to become the 16th NIH director. The announcement was made by HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, who said, “Dr. Collins is one of our generation’s great scientific leaders. A physician and geneticist, [he] served as director of the National Human Genome Research Institute, where he led the Human Genome Project to completion. Dr. Collins will be an outstanding leader. Today is an exciting day for NIH and for science in this country.”

Collins began his new job on Aug. 17. All were invited to a Town Hall meeting he was to host that day from 10:30 to 11:30 a.m. in Natcher auditorium.

Now available for test drive, this baby is sleek, fast and handles beautifully.

Only it’s not a car. It’s a database.

The Office of Extramural Research has launched RePORTER, a brand new tool for searching all NIH-funded projects.

Available on the Research Portfolio Online Reporting Tool (RePORT) web site at http://report.nih.gov, RePORTER (the RePORT Expenditures and Results module) is already garnering praise from journalists, science bloggers and grantees.

It will replace CRISP, NIH’s veteran database of federally funded biomedical research projects, including those in our sister HHS agencies.