Dr. Francis S. Collins is retiring at the end of this year. This NYT article from 2017 tells you some of what you need to know:
A Federal Ban on Making Lethal Viruses Is Lifted"Federal officials on Tuesday ended a moratorium imposed three years ago on funding research that alters germs to make them more lethal.
Such work can now proceed, said Dr. Francis S. Collins, the head of the National Institutes of Health, but only if a scientific panel decides that the benefits justify the risks."
These two people at the FDA have just now left their positions. They are longtime gatekeepers for determining national immunization strategies:
Two senior FDA officials resign over Biden administration booster shot plan"Marion Gruber, director of the FDA’s Office of Vaccines Research & Review, and deputy director Phil Krause are set to leave the agency this fall.
According to trade publication Endpoints, the officials felt they were sidelined on major decisions, that the administration’s plan for boosters was jumping the gun, and that Marks should have pushed for the FDA to have more autonomy on the matter."
They co-published in The Lancet a treatise that (experimental serum) inventory should go to jabbing the unjabbed rather than boosters.