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NIH’s Francis Collins on gene-editing, his truck-driving aspirations, and what he’d change about science

If 7-year-old Francis Collins had his way, we may never have seen the Human Genome Project. (We’d have a pretty savvy truck driver, however.)

LOS ANGELES — If 7-year-old Francis Collins had his way, we might never have seen the Human Genome Project. (We’d have a pretty savvy truck driver, however).

The 68-year-old physician-geneticist has led the National Institutes of Health for nine years, with zero plans of slowing. The organization is on the verge of launching a massive endeavor — the “All of Us” effort to sequence the genomes of 1 million Americans from all walks of life.

STAT sat down for a chat with the ever-avuncular Collins at this week’s Milken Institute Conference in Los Angeles — a Davos-like confab stacked with Wall Street glitterati, Hollywood change agents, industry titans, and academics.

Here’s what he

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