Francis Collins: “If we were thinking of a collection of the genome's greatest hits, this would go on the list.”

Freedom is about rights, but it's also about responsibilities.

I never used the word 'cure' for a lot of diseases, but sickle cell can be cured with some of these treatments, and we need to make sure people have access to them.

Let me remind you of the last sentence of that Gettysburg Address: 'that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the Earth.'

Francis Collins, then head of the NIH, labeled me a fringe epidemiologist.