Administration and was reappointed by President Trump. In addition he most recent was given the prize for his involvement in spiritual matters involving scientific matters and will talk about that in a moment. If i could talk to dr. Collins first. Dr. Collins, you just over the human genome which is a complicated project and it involved thousands of scientists, in a was amounts of effort over many, many years. Was the pressure to get the human genome discovered, how to compare that with depression of dealing with this coronavirus . Which was greater and how do you accept the challenges of that project versus this project or effort . David, thanks for starting us off this way. Hello to everybody. Natanz plate of a chance to have an interview with david. I look for to the days its nice to have that conversation again. The human genome project was an intensely competitive effort and were trying to the dna instruction, effort that took 15 years and we want to beat that date and we ultimately did. It was a high adrenaline all the time especially because there was a competition between the public project and by the one is going to privatize the outcome which we didnt thing was such a good idea. But ive got to say this effort right now on covid19 outstrips it just in terms of intensity because it is much more directly connected to human suffering and human lives. When we were doing the human genome we knew ultimately it when it benefits medicine but now with covid19 everyday you have the sense of urgency a finding that next treatment, hitting eating that faxing at the, taking the diagnostics better, although are not real peoples whose lives are at risk. So it is over the top. Us talk about the vaccine. Normally you have vaccine can take five to seven years or longer. For the great influence in 1918 we still have vaccine to that virus. Why is have an optimistic we will get a in the next few months or year. If you had to pick a disease or virus or which vaccine to work, this is not bad but because people get infected with this sarscov2 virus. The immune system for most of ud is to fight it off quite effectively and after while the virus is gone from the system. That is possible for the immune system to win. Thats not true for hiv. People of bennett antiretrovirals for use come and have the thats why the vecsey been so tough. This to be a good gambit and thats what were pulling up every possible stop trying every approach come different vaccine platforms come Different Companies and pulling all of the resource together so we can run the trials as quickly as possible but safely. If we find a successful vaccine, we are actually making a plan that it will already have been manufactured in sufficient doses to start distributing so you dont have a gap at the end of the trial. Never done anything like this before but insist that the reason we are here visited to pull out the stops and figure out how we can compress timetables when peoples lives are at risk. You have been putting out at any age and of the places other parts of that, fdas well a fair amount of money to discover a vaccine. Who is going to own those vaccines . Does a federal government owned or not . We have a competent system that would comes to intellectual property. When the vaccines were start at the federal, in her own Vaccine Research and at any age and work with a Biotechnology Company to get to her we are now with very impressive result in getting paid to go into largescale trial as early as july. That one would get some particular stakes in the influx of property. Others come have invested their efforts in getting them to the point where they might be ready for trial the world what to do is we provide additional funds for the trials to rerun and put at risk manufacturing to be done to be sure those arrangements are made so that will be a fair price for that for the vaccined comes out the other end. So whether it is owned by the government or the companies, you are fairly comfortable at a reasonable price would be charged or a very low price be charged . Talking to the Companies Come i dont hear any of them safe this is a moneymaker. I think they want to recoup the cost and maybe make a tiny percentage of increase profit over that like in Single Digits percentagewise but thats it. Nobody sees this as a way to make billions of dollars. Nih has many different institutes, what of it is the allergy and Infectious Disease institute, and that one is headed by tony fauci and he reports to you. How do you oversee him . Do you call them everyday and tell what to do or how does that work . It works really well. Tony was the most highly regarded Infectious Disease expert in the world, and its wonderful to have him and his long experience on her staff and obviously hes become the face of public indications about this virus as well and very effectively. Basically saying what we know and also what we dont know. Tony at that out every single night, sometimes between eight and 10 p. M. To catch up on the things that event happening in his will and will in my world,g sure they are closely connected. We are both laugh at working 100 hours a week or so on covid19 because you got to do that when you have the chance to marshal all these resources and move them faster than ever. As i talked you are you at your home or in your office . I met home. This is my home office. I have been to pretty much continuously for the last ten and a half weeks. Ive only been out of the house on rare occasions to go to a hearing on capitol hill or to go to an event at the white house. When i go out i wear a mask at a commode as soon as im done in pretty much this is what i am. Im all those guidelines and i hope everybody else is about social distancing, wearing a mask, washing hands and stay safe. How hard is it to run in h with a gigantic budget from your house . Shouldnt there be an nih exception . I thought it was going to be really hard but it kind of got into the rhythm. Zoom calls and Conference Calls and countless emails. I in managing pretty well to be able to oversee 32 billion a Year Research fund. As long as i got that ability to connect with anyone. Theres a Little Silver lining here. Im not missing being on airplanes at all. Im not missing driving long distances tversky fits the bigger when your only at home and sitting at this desk as i am 13 hours a day, you can get a lot done. Many people in zoom calls of books behind them they have never read. I presume you have read all of those. I have read most of them. Ajmer written a fair number of them as well. What about your band . You have banned, and have you been able to perform while youre in virtual lock up . No. This is one of the heartaches of the covid19 lockdown, and the ban has gone into mothballs. We had three gates we had to cancel. We havent had any rehearsal. Some effort to do that over the internet but theres a time delay and if your band is little shaky anyway, it gets really shaky when you cant do this in real time taste to face. I do find myself getting a chance of music to get into my life i do say so event. Theres a video of you now around the internet of you playing a song called imagine with new lyrics that i guess you are somebody else wrote. Had he gotten feedback on that . That one went viral. I was amazed. This was a load to that my chief of staff who wrote the lyrics for to make imagine appropriate for covid19. Made a little bitty with my wife as the videographer and sent out to the nih staff as sort of way of keeping us all connected and try to keep everybody cheered up about what theyre doing when theyre at home and frustrated about not able to do work. Somehow got up on youtube now its over 100,000 hits, which is astounding. You have other crises to worry about. In h does so many things. Are you paying enough attention to all the other health rices your to do with . David, i do worry about that, with such an intense focus, with good reason on covid19. What about Everything Else . Weve had to enter Clinical Center which is the Worlds Largest research hospital, close on elective visits outpatient clinic, anything that was not a lifethreatening crisis and a lot of research that was planned is not getting done and thats true all over the country, people are found it necessary for safety reasons to keep the room, in the clinics and hospitals. Im looking for to figure out ways we can gradually start to ease up on that but im still very, very worried where a long ways from being to the point where one can say where completely safe doing so. I just spent two hours starting at 7 a. M. With a big project we are doing on diabetes and alzheimers disease and Rheumatoid Arthritis and he with his. Things are moving along but it has been difficult to keep the momentum going with so many people not in a position with a can do their usual job. Do you fear because all the money the u. S. Government is borrowing at some point people say where to cut budgets and maybe will cut the nh budget . Is that worry that you . I certainly and what about the state of nations economy and what thats doing to our own national deficit. But i would argue the worst thing would to do it now is to make cuts in places that are big supporters of our economy and actually medical research does extremely well in that kind of calculation. Our return on investment for every dollar that in h is spending in its grants program is about eightfold over the course of the next five years. If you really want to bring the economy back to life, nih is a great way to help us do that. I hope as those decisions get made it will be clear what is the best way to get our economy booming and where one of them. So lets keep that going. Dr. Collins can you and i were born almost exactly the same time in 19 you are 49 to 50. Fifty. So were almost the same age. Im a little older but why is it that people our age, baby boomers, have greater predilection to getting seriously ill with covid19, and why does it attack the lungs in such a vicious way . What is the reason for that . We dont entirely understand it. A lot of it is people our age also other chronic illness. Im fortunate not to and using be looking pretty good yourself. Some of it is just the correlation with other kinds of things that would put you at risk. People of diabetes or Heart Disease or chronic lung disease. You can see how that might be a circumstance for a virus arriving on scene would be ethically dangerous point but some of this test do seem to be an effect of age. Our best guess is the immune systems ability to respond gets a a little tired, a little sleepy. We know giving someone a flu shot winner over 65 you dont always get as good an immune response as if people were 25. Theres something there that may be placed into this. We have a lot of work to do yet to sort that out. What are you doing to stay healthy . The walk every day, take aspirin, pray, what do you do . I do pray. Thats my status point. I wake up early. I spent some time in meditation and read scriptures, and then i workout in my basement. Weve had a lot of iron down there, and im doing pretty heavy workouts at least two or three times a week. I wish i could see us going outside and taking walks and bike rides more than i am because i miss that, but many days its starting early and in the late that it never quite happens. I am a little worried about being under exercised in this current climate and try to make up for it by those ridiculous workouts at five in the morning. What about my system . I have a lot of equipment but if i walk past it i think it will rub off the. Does that work or not really . We could do a study on that but i think it would have a predictable outcome. You have to pick up the iron. It will not do anything for you. One thing youve done that is amazing a lot of people is you have been appointed to this position by press obama in one of the first things President Trump did because members of cox arching to do so was to reappoint you. You are one of 50 people that got along extremely well with both as president. How did you manage to pull that off . There certainly have been some [inaudible] but i would say its a reflection, david, of the fact the medical Research Remains one of the last topics that is that become extremely partisan and may that please continue. I am not a political animal. I dont belong to any particular party. Im totally comfortable when i go to the old pocket either at anytime about medical research, and those are great conversations. Thats about it and such promisee. Maybe its that so much that im such an effective politician or political animal. Just the topic lends itself to broad support that really shouldnt have to be so much turned upside down when an administration changes. Some people say that scientists cant be religious. You are familiar with but you have broke that buying pretty well. You just won the templeton prize for your spiritual commitment as well as your scientific knowledge. [inaudible] how have you been able to walk that fine line when so we others find this part of it is, theres been an overgeneralization about the idea that scientists cant actually be people of faith. Statistics would say as many as 40 of working scientists believe in god, and not just a vague idea what a god who is personal interests and can be actually pray do with the expectation of a response. Thats 40 . They dont talk about it much because there is sort of attendance in scientific come in to look some reflect safely maybe the just a little intellectually soft, not as likely to continue. We are all careful about it but im not such a rare bird. I found it extremely rewarding since i became a christian at age 27 not having grown up in the Faith Community at all, to find ways to use the tools of faith to answer questions that science cant quite help me with, like why is this something instead of nothing . Is there a god . What happens after you die . What is love all about anyway . All these things that are really important but where science kind of lease you will without really a path forward to try to come up with an answer leads you. I think if i were a pure atheist perspective where nothing matters except what you could i would feel impoverished in terms of the inability to really reflect on things that are important. Your parents were, i think you described them as hippies. Is that fair or not . They were doing the 60s but it wasnt the six egypt. It was a 50s, living on a farm with no indoor plumbing, 22 living off the land. They loved all the arts, the music of the theater, visual art, literature but there were not interested in faith issues site didnt come up with that experience. I came to faith as a medical student watching people facing death and realizing i had no way to internalize what that must feel like to try to wrestle with his issues, and that my arguments against god i discovered fairly quickly with those of schoolboy and needed some serious investigation, and to my surprise that investigation led to conversion, the last thing i expected. You havent pursued money in the course of your life obviously, but now youve got a large gift that you could give away or you could buy something, artwork. What do you think youre going to do with that . Well, doesnt actually arre until september got a little time with my wife to think about it. Certainly we want to figure out a way to donate a significant hactivist to a foundation yesterday before i begin an h director and had to walk away from, foundation which is the place that would people interested in this discussion about science and faith go, billions of them come to have that kind of conversation in a deeply thoughtful, loving, very civil sort of way. No mudslinging aloud and and id love to see that foundation continue to flourish. Final two questions, dr. Collins. First, are you worried about a resurgence of this virus as we now go back to work gradually . Are you worried that could be a resurgence in the fourth be back in same position we were a couple months ago if were not careful . I am worried about that. We were talking about this. This is my 3d printed model of what it coronavirus looks like, it just because we have been successful so far in being able to flatten that curve, things are looking better in a lot of parts of the country come doesnt mean that weve any weight change the dynamic all that much. Most of us know most of us are not immune. Most of us have just as much a chance getting sick as we were exposed in march or april. So were going to try everyday to gradually open up various parts of society, but were going to have to be really, really careful about that and no cutting corners and anybody going to the bar and taking off the mask. Otherwise, we wouldve done to ourselves and that second wave come we cant afford that Better Things to everybody will happen. Its up to all of us as americans to take responsibility of preventing that. And as a scientist and some who spends a lot of time in a lab, do you think its possible somebody couldve invented the covid19 and a lab in wuhan or is it natural, in your view . Ive looked in great detail at the actual letters of instruction book of this virus. Its genome. If you look at that and you compare two genomes of other coronaviruses, you can infer that this is something which came through a through a serief National Steps come maybe originally from a virus in a bad, perhaps passing through altima jumping into human species. There is no way this particular virus would have been human decide. When you look at it you can exclude that. I wish people would not be sort of speculating about something that actually clearly disproven. This is dangerous, bioterrorist act and now well we have to dh it because nature always proved to be the best bioterrorist in terms of its inventions and scepters figure out how to cope. Are you upset that dr. Fauci has bobble heads that are selling very, very well . Is that a problem for you . I am the biggest thing you could imagine of tony fauci. The more bobble heads the cells, the more times he appears in seaman, the more opportunities he has to teach everybody about the size, about Infectious Disease, about we all need to do, im totally in favor so no, im not the least bit upset. Ill let you go back to work. Figuring much for your service to the country. Inks, david. Always great to talk to you. Thank you. Cspan has unfiltered coverage of congress, the white house, the Supreme Court and Public Policy events from the president ial primary to the impeachment process, and now the federal response to the coronavirus. You can watch all of cspans Public Affairs programming on television, online, or listen on our free radio at any part of the National Conversation to cspans data Washington Journal Program or through our social media feeds. Cspan, created by americas cabletelevision company as a public service, and brought to you today by your television provider. Monday in use Senate Members came to the floor to speak about death of george floyd in Minneapolis Police custody, at the protests and civil unrest across the nation. Senate chaplain barry black open the session with a prayer for peace and justice. Eternal god, who has placed our tears in a bottle, today we weep. We weep because every death