President Donald Trump’s administration has declined to reappoint Walter Koroshetz as head of the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH’s) neuroscience institute – even though the agency’s director had backed his renewal. Koroshetz’s dismissal after 10 years of leading the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) has alarmed the biomedical research community and heightened concerns that NIH is becoming politicized.

Some outside observers had already been questioning how much control NIH Director Jayanta “Jay” Bhattacharya has over the world’s biggest biomedical funder. And Koroshetz’s departure means 14 of NIH’s 27 institutes and centers now lack a permanent leader.

Koroshetz’s removal has drawn an outpouring of concern from researchers as well as patient advocates. The American Academy of Neurology “expresses significant concern over the abrupt decision” to end the contract of “a highly respected leader” without any formal announcement or plan for his successor, the group said in a 27 December statement.

Source https://www.science.org/content/article/firing-neuroscience-institute-chief-adds-nih-s-leadership-vacuum

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