US President-elect Donald Trump has announced Indian-origin Dr Jay Bhattacharya as the director of the National Institutes of Health, the country's premier medical research agency with a $48 billion budget.

He will lead the agency that has 27 separate institutes and centres, each having its own research agenda, focusing on different diseases like diabetes and cancer.

In a statement, Trump noted the Stanford academic and US COVID-19 policy critic will be working with Robert F. Kennedy Jr to direct the Nation's Medical Research and to make important discoveries that will improve health.

“Together, Jay and RFK Jr. will restore the NIH to a Gold Standard of Medical Research as they examine the underlying causes of, and solutions to, America's biggest health challenges, including our crisis of chronic illness and disease. Together, they will work hard to make America healthy again,” the statement added.

Bhattacharya on X stated that he was “honoured and humbled” by Trump's nomination.

"We will reform American scientific institutions so that they are worthy of trust again and will deploy the fruits of excellent science to make America healthy again," he wrote.

Who is Jay Bhattacharya?

Born in 1968 in Kolkata, West Bengal, Bhattacharya holds a doctorate in medicine from Stanford in 1997. He received a PhD in Economics from the university three years after that.

Currently, he serves as the Professor of Health Policy at Stanford University, besides his role as a research associate at the National Bureau of Economics Research.

He directs the Center for Demography and Economics of Health and Aging at Stanford.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Bhattacharya came into the spotlight as a prominent critic of the US government's response to it. In October 2020, he co-wrote an open letter, called the 'Great Barrington Declaration', that asked the government to roll back lockdown and have 'focused protection' on the vulnerable population. It stated that those who are at minimal risk of death should be allowed to live their lives normally to build up immunity to the virus through natural infection.

Through his research work, Bhattacharya has majorly focused on the health and well-being of vulnerable populations, emphasising the role of government programs, biomedical innovation and economics.

His recent research focused on the epidemiology of COVID-19 and an evaluation of policy responses to the pandemic.

He has authored more than 130 articles in several scientific journals in medicine, economics and more.