Jay Bhattacharya top candidate to be Trump's pick for NIH director, reveals report

Jay Bhattacharya is now the presumptive favourite to be selected by United States President-elect Donald Trump as the next director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Washington Post reported on Saturday, citing three people familiar with the matter.

The Stanford-trained physician and economist met with Robert F. Kennedy Jr (RFK Jr), Trump's pick to lead the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) this week and impressed him with his ideas to overhaul NIH, the report said.

Trump's transition team did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.

Bhattacharya has called for shifting the agency's focus toward funding more innovative research and reducing the influence of some of its longest-serving career officials, the report added.

Trump picked Kennedy earlier this month to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, America's top health agency which oversees NIH and other health agencies.

Trump's pick for the NIH came over a week after he tapped RFK to lead the top US health agency, which was criticised by many experts.

About RFK Jr's appointment, Dr Krishanthi Subramaniam, lecturer at the Institute Of Infection, Veterinary and Ecological Sciences, University Of Liverpool, said: "(The nomination) is alarming not just to the health of those living in the US but also to everyone in the global community.

"Kennedy has a track-record of being a vaccine denier and has touted vaccine misinformation as scientific truth. This announcement may usher in a heightened period of vaccine hesitancy in the United States which would mean outbreaks of diseases that vaccines have kept at bay.”