Gary Gibbons, M.D., is retiring as National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI) director, adding to the extensive churn at the top of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The departure will mean 15 of the NIH’s 27 institutes and centers are under interim leadership.
Gibbons has led the NHLBI since 2012, supporting work to cure sickle cell disease and show the effect of intensive blood pressure management on cardiovascular mortality. Before joining the institute, he was founding director of the Morehouse School of Medicine’s Cardiovascular Research Institute.
Effective Jan. 31, Gibbons will leave the post and retire from federal service. David Goff, M.D., Ph.D., will serve as acting NHLBI director while the NIH searches for a permanent replacement.
Gibbons’ retirement adds to the list of NIH institutes without permanent directors. As of Dec. 18, the NIH listed 13 acting leaders at its 27 institutes and centers. Since then, the NIH has terminated the contract of Walter Koroshetz, M.D., adding the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke to the list of groups without permanent directors.
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The NIH has failed to quickly find people to permanently fill leadership vacancies that have opened up during the second Trump administration. Eric Green, M.D., Ph.D., became the first leader to be shown the door in March 2025. The National Human Genome Research Institute, the organization Green ran, still has an acting director 10 months later.
All of the institutes with acting directors would be consolidated into new groups under a plan proposed (PDF) by the NIH last year. The proposal calls for the NHLBI to merge with two institutes focused on diseases including arthritis and diabetes to create the National Institute on Body Systems. Institutes for aging, cancer and infectious disease would survive, with all other groups consolidated into five new institutes.
