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PMC to Recognize NIH Director With Leadership in Personalized Medicine Award

Dr. Francis S. Collins to Accept Award, Deliver Comments During 11th Annual Personalized Medicine Conference at Harvard Medical School

WASHINGTON (Aug. 27, 2015) — In recognition of a career that has resulted in four of the biggest breakthroughs in the history of personalized medicine, the Personalized Medicine Coalition (PMC) will present National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director Francis S. Collins, M.D., Ph.D., with the 11th Annual Leadership in Personalized Medicine Award during the Personalized Medicine Conference at Harvard Medical School on Nov. 19.

In his letter nominating Collins for the award, Harvard Medical School Professor Raju Kucherlapati, Ph.D., noted that Collins “has made sustained and critical contributions for the establishment of personalized medicine.” A physician-geneticist, Collins earned national recognition in 1989, more than a decade before the complete sequencing of the human genome, for his team’s discovery of the gene responsible for cystic fibrosis. He then served as the director of the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI), where he was the overall project manager of the international Human Genome Project, which produced a complete map of the human genome in 2003. He also played a key role in the passage of the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (GINA) in 2008, which has helped to ensure that the insights from his extraordinary achievements and those of many others are not used for discriminatory purposes.

President Obama nominated him as NIH director in 2009, proclaiming that his work had already “changed the very ways we consider our health and examine disease.” As NIH director, Collins’ relentless advocacy helped shape President Obama’s Precision Medicine Initiative (PMI), which was announced earlier this year as part of the President’s budget proposal for fiscal year 2016.

Collins remains one of the field’s most passionate champions.

“I see a day in the not too distant future when every person will have his or her genome sequenced and other important data collected as a routine part of medical care with individualized strategies developed for diagnosing, treating and preventing their disease,” said Dr. Collins. “I know that the PMC shares this vision and I am truly honored to receive this award from an organization that continues to pursue the vision with such great passion.”

Collins will accept the award and deliver remarks at 10:30 a.m. on the second day of the conference, which will take place from Nov. 18 – 19 at the Harvard School of Medicine. The event kicks off with PMC’s cocktail reception at the Hotel Commonwealth on Nov. 17.

Register for PMC’s cocktail reception on Nov. 17

Register for the Personalized Medicine Conference (Nov. 18 – 19)

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About the Personalized Medicine Coalition:
The Personalized Medicine Coalition, representing innovators, scientists, patients, providers and payers, promotes the understanding and adoption of personalized medicine concepts, services and products to benefit patients and the health system. For more information, please visit www.personalizedmedicinecoalition.org.

About the Leadership in Personalized Medicine Award:
The Leadership in Personalized Medicine Award recognizes an individual whose contributions in science, business and/or policy have helped advance the frontiers of personalized medicine. Previous recipients of the award include Dr. Janet Woodcock, director of the Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, Dr. Elizabeth G. Nabel, former director of the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute at the National Institutes of Health, Dr. Ralph Snyderman, chancellor emeritus of Duke University, former Health and Human Services secretary Michael Leavitt, Brook Byers of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Dr. William Dalton, president and CEO of the Moffitt Cancer Center, Dr. Leroy Hood, president and co-founder of the Institute for Systems Biology, Dr. Randal W. Scott, founder, Genomic Health Inc. and current chairman and CEO, InVitae Corporation, Kathy Giusti, founder and CEO of the Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation, and Mark Levin, co-founder and partner at Third Rock Ventures.