Monica M. Bertagnolli, the 16th NCI director, has been confirmed as the 17th director of NIH—six months after the White House first named her to lead the world’s largest public funder of biomedical research.
Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. appeared before the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Health to defend the HHS fiscal year 2026 budget proposal, and faced criticism from several Democratic lawmakers on what they described as a lack of transparency and scientific rigor in the agency’s recent decisions.
