Who is Jay Bhattacharya? Kolkata-born, Stanford-trained physician is Donald Trump’s top choice to head US health agency

Jay Bhattacharya has emerged as US President-elect Donald Trump’s top pick to serve as the next director of the National Institutes of Health, reported the Washington Post, citing three people aware of the matter.

Jayanta Bhattacharya, also known as Jay Bhattacharya, is a Professor of Health Policy at Stanford University and a research associate at the National Bureau of Economics Research. He was born in Kolkata in 1968. Bhattacharya finished MD from Stanford University's School of Medicine in 1997.

He pursued a PhD from Stanford University's Department of Economics in 2000. He has been serving as the Director of the Center on the Demography and Economics of Health and Aging at Stanford University since 2011.

Bhattacharya’s research includes topics such as the economics of healthcare across the world with a specific emphasis on the health and well-being of vulnerable populations, focusing on the role of government programs, biomedical innovation, and health policy.

His research work has been published in various economics, statistics, legal, medical, public health, and health policy journals. His recent research work includes the epidemiology of COVID-19, the lethality of COVID-19 infection and the impact of lockdown policies.

In October 2022, Bhattacharya, along with Martin Kulldorff, a Harvard University professor, and Sunetra Gupta from Oxford University, wrote an open letter called the Great Barrington Declaration, criticising the government COVID-19 policies, requesting a rollback of lockdowns and providing “focused protections” for vulnerable populations.

This letter was supported by many Republican leaders. Still, it was criticised by the then NIH Director Francis S Collins, citing the potential spread of the virus and the unavailability of vaccines.

This week, Bhattacharya reportedly met Robert F Kennedy Jr and presented his ideas to revamp the NIH. He also suggested shifting the focus of NIH by spending more on research and reducing the influence of some serving officials, the Washington Post said.

Earlier this month, Trump selected Kennedy to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, which looks after NIH and related agencies.