Many people struggle with losing weight and then regaining it. But there is no convincing evidence that the effort to lose weight actually promotes more weight gain in the long run. Francis Collins convinceeffortevidence Change image and share on social
As a Christian, but also as a scientist responsible for overseeing the Human Genome Project, one of my concerns has been the limits on applications of our understanding of the genome. Should there be limits? I think there should. I think the public has expressed their concern about ways this information might be misused. Francis Collins applicationchristianconcern share on social
If you are looking for a needle in a haystack, and somebody has already cataloged all the straw in the haystack, when you get to that needle you will recognize it's different than what was supposed to be there based on all that computerized haystack information that had been predetermined for you. Francis Collins basecatalogedcomputerize share on social
For delightfully quirky descriptions of bizarre neurological syndromes that teach us a lot about how the brain works, there is no match for Oliver Sacks. Francis Collins bizarrebraindelightfully Change image and share on social
As a scientist, you're not supposed to make decisions without the data. Francis Collins datumdecisionmake Change image and share on social
If you are in support of in vitro fertilization, then you have to recognize that human embryos are being created in excess of what can be used safely to reimplant for a pregnancy. So they're going to end up being discarded. Francis Collins creatediscardembryo share on social
The brain is the most complicated organ in the universe. We have learned a lot about other human organs. We know how the heart pumps and how the kidney does what it does. To a certain degree, we have read the letters of the human genome. But the brain has 100 billion neurons. Each one of those has about 10,000 connections. Francis Collins 000billionbrain share on social
Genes are effectively one-dimensional. If you write down the sequence of A, C, G and T, that's kind of what you need to know about that gene. But proteins are three-dimensional. They have to be because we are three-dimensional, and we're made of those proteins. Otherwise we'd all sort of be linear, unimaginably weird creatures. Francis Collins creaturedimensionaleffectively share on social
People who are in a position of finding out that they're at risk for some illness, whether it's breast cancer, or heart disease, are afraid to get that information - even though it might be useful to them - because of fears that they'll lose their health insurance or their job. Francis Collins afraidbreastcancer share on social
Research is so unpredictable. There are periods when nothing works and all your experiments are a disaster and all your hypotheses are wrong. Francis Collins disasterexperimenthypothesis Change image and share on social