NIH Leader Takes on CDC Role; Leadership Feedback on Unified Funding Strategy

By: Yvette Seger
Thursday, February 26, 2026
On February 18, multiple news outlets reported that Jayanta Bhattacharya, MD, PhD, Director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), would take on an additional assignment within the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) – Acting Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). This is the third leader of the beleaguered public health agency since its Senate-confirmed leader, Susan Monarez, PhD, was fired from the agency less than a month after being sworn in. Jim O’Neill, the previous Acting Director of CDC, is expected to be nominated by the Trump Administration to serve as the director of the National Science Foundation.

Beyond shifts in responsibilities for the agency’s leader, a February 23 post on the NIH Extramural Nexus news blog provided an update on the implementation of the agency’s Unified Funding Strategy. Announced in August 2025 with additional details about implementation shared in November, the framework was intended to ensure a unified approach for funding decisions across NIH’s 27 Institutes and Centers, including alignment with the agency’s mission, prioritization of scientific merit, sustainability of the biomedical research workforce, and broad distribution of research funds. For approximately half of the Institutes and Centers, this approach also meant a shift away from using paylines to guide funding decisions. The Extramural Nexus post includes brief perspectives of 13 Institute and Center leaders on strategy implementation.