Serving on the team that launched the Cancer Moonshot Initiative was just one of the many achievements in Francis Collins’, MD, PhD, 12-year tenure as the director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Collins announced in October 2021 that he is stepping down from his role by the end of 2021 after serving as NIH director for three presidential appointments, during which he advocated for increasing NIH’s research budget, learning more about the human genome, and developing treatments tailored to unique genetics.