Senate confirms Jay Bhattacharya to lead NIH

Kolkata-born Stanford University professor is the first Indian American to lead the world’s biggest government-funded biomedical research entity

By Arun Kumar

The U.S. Senate has confirmed Kolkata-born Stanford University professor Jayanta ‘Jay’ Bhattacharya, a leading Covid lockdown sceptic to be the next director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

In a  53-47 vote along party lines Tuesday, the Senate confirmed the first Indian American chosen by President Donald Trump to lead the world’s biggest government-funded biomedical research entity with a budget of some $48.6 billion.

READ: Trump chooses Jay Bhattacharya to lead NIH (November 28th, 2024) 

Bhattacharya, a professor of medicine at Stanford University and a research associate at the National Bureau of Economics Research, has been a vocal critic of the NIH. He gained attention as a co-author and signer of The Great Barrington Declaration, a controversial open letter from scientists issued in October 2020 that expressed concern with restrictive Covid-19 policies and called for a more targeted approach.

The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee advanced his nomination on party lines earlier this month. The Senate voted to end debate on his nomination earlier Tuesday on a 53-46 party line vote.

During his confirmation hearing, Bhattacharya said he would prioritize rebuilding trust in science, increasing overall transparency and seeking new solutions to combat chronic disease. Democrats criticized the administration’s freezing of NIH grants and workforce reductions, but Bhattacharya deflected, saying he would re-examine those issues after his confirmation.

“I fully commit to making sure that all the scientists at the NIH and the scientists that the NIH supports have the resources they need to meet the mission of the NIH, which is to make America do research to make America healthy,” he said then.

The NIH director oversees 27 institutes and centers that conduct early-stage research on everything from vaccines for emerging pandemic threats to targets for new drugs.

Bhattacharya has a large extended family, including cousins, uncles, and aunts, still living in India. “My mother and father are both children of India’s partition, and my mother grew up in a slum area of Kidderpore, Kolkata,” he told the Times of India in an earlier interview.

“When I was little, my family regularly visited Kolkata, and I heard the stories of all my cousins and relatives. This background and my connection to India have shaped me and continues to inspire me,” he added.

Bhattacharya also directs Stanford’s Center for Demography and Economics of Health and Aging, according to his resume. His research focuses on the health and well-being of vulnerable populations, with a particular emphasis on the role of government programs, biomedical innovation, and economics. Bhattacharya’s recent research focuses on the epidemiology of Covid -19 as well as an evaluation of policy responses to the epidemic.

His broader research interests encompass the implications of population aging for future population health and medical spending in developed countries, the measurement of physician performance tied to physician payment by insurers, and the role played by biomedical innovation on health.

He has published 135 articles in top peer-reviewed scientific journals in medicine, economics, health policy, epidemiology, statistics, law, and public health among other fields. He holds an MD and PhD in economics, both earned at Stanford University.