Trump taps Jay Bhattacharya to lead National Institutes of Health

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump has tapped Jay Bhattacharya to serve as director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), a key medical research agency.

“Dr Bhattacharya will work in cooperation with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to restore the NIH to a Gold Standard of Medical Research as they examine the underlying causes of, and solutions to, America’s biggest health challenges, including our crisis of chronic illness and disease,” Trump said in a Truth Social post on Tuesday.

Tuesday’s nomination rounds out Trump’s top public health team. Earlier this month, Trump nominated Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to be his HHS secretary. The Republican has already unveiled all 15 posts for his cabinet as he prepares to take office on January 20.

Born in Kolkata, India, Bhattacharya is a Professor of Health Policy at Stanford University and a research associate at the National Bureau of Economics Research. He directs Stanford’s Center for Demography and Economics of Health and Aging, with his research focused on the health and well-being of vulnerable populations.

Bhattacharya was a prominent critic of the federal government’s Covid-19 response, co-writing the Great Barrington Declaration, an open letter published in October 2020 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdowns. The letter called for rolling back coronavirus-related shutdowns and recommended an approach called “focused protections” for vulnerable populations, such as older Americans.