As the director of the National Institutes of Health, Dr. Jay Bhattacharya would oversee the world’s premier medical research agency, with a $48 billion budget and 27 separate institutes and centers.

The physician and economist was the face of the Great Barrington Declaration, which opposed widespread lockdowns.

Jay Bhattacharya, a Stanford professor and US Covid-19 policy opponent, was appointed by President-elect Donald Trump on Tuesday to lead the National Institutes of Health, the nation's largest public provider of medical research funding,