Stanford-trained physician and economist Jay Bhattacharya has been officially nominated by President-elect Donald Trump to serve as the next director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

Trump made the announcement in a Truth Social post, writing: “I am thrilled to nominate Jay Bhattacharya, MD, PhD, as Director of the National Institutes of Health. Dr. Bhattacharya will work with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead the nation’s medical research and make important discoveries that will improve health and save lives.”

Bhattacharya met this week with Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who was nominated by Trump to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the NIH and other health agencies, and impressed the former presidential candidate with his ideas for overhauling the NIH. who oversees U.S. biomedical research, according to a report by The Washington Post.

The NIH also awards funding grants to hundreds of thousands of researchers, oversees clinical trials on its Maryland campus, and supports a variety of efforts to develop drugs and therapies.

The nominee for NIH director must be confirmed by the Senate, which will have a Republican majority starting in January.

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Stanford-educated physician and economist Jay Bhattacharya is reportedly the presumptive favorite to be nominated by newly elected President Donald Trump as the next director of the NIH. (Getty Images)

Bhattacharya has called for shifting the NIH’s focus to funding more innovative research and reducing the influence of some of its longest-serving officials.

Kennedy Jr. has played a central role in choosing top health care officials and surrogates for Trump’s next administration, including Johns Hopkins surgeon Marty Makary, whom Trump picked to lead the Food and Drug Administration, and an internist and former Republican Florida Congressman Dave Weldon, who was chosen by Trump to head the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, according to the report.

FILE: Jay Bhattacharya speaks at the 2023 Forbes Healthcare Summit at Jazz at Lincoln Center on December 5, 2023 in New York City. (Photo by Taylor Hill/Getty Images)

Bhattacharya and Makary worked together on a blueprint for a proposed commission to investigate the country’s response to the coronavirus, the report said.

Trump’s selection of Makary, Weldon and family and emergency medicine physician Janette Nesheiwat, who was nominated by the president-elect to serve as surgeon general, also must be confirmed by the Senate.

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The nominee for NIH director must be confirmed by the Senate, which will have a Republican majority starting in January. (Getty Images)

Bhattacharya was a prominent critic of the federal government’s response to COVID-19 during the early days of the pandemic. He co-wrote an open letter in October 2020, during Trump’s first term, calling on the administration to roll back pandemic shutdowns but maintain “targeted protections” for vulnerable populations such as the elderly.

The suggestion was supported by Republican lawmakers and many Americans critical of shutdowns and wanting to return to pre-pandemic life. However, public health experts, including then-NIH Director Francis S. Collins, criticized the proposal as premature and dangerous amid the spread of COVID-19 at a time when vaccines were not yet available.

Bhattacharya has also called for a rollback of power from some of the 27 institutes and centers that make up the NIH, arguing that some career officials misshaped national policy at the height of the pandemic and did not allow for differing perspectives.

The nominee for NIH director will not be official until President-elect Donald Trump makes the announcement. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

He, along with other critics of the agency, have criticized former National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases director Anthony Fauci, who helped shape the nation’s response to the coronavirus during the Trump and Biden administrations before taking over federal government in December 2022.

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The NIH has also been investigated by House lawmakers over its response to the pandemic, with Republicans charging that the agency’s leaders mismanaged the response to the virus and calling for an overhaul of the agency.

Current and former NIH officials, including Fauci, have defended the agency’s response, arguing that federal leaders generally did their best to tackle the virus.