Science Magazine

Firing of neuroscience institute chief adds to NIH’s leadership vacuum

Trump administration declines to renew appointment of Walter Koroshetz, against NIH director’s wishes

by Jocelyn Kaiser

President Donald Trump’s administration has declined to reappoint Walter Koroshetz as head of the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH’s) neuroscience institute—even though the agency’s director had backed his renewal. Koroshetz’s dismissal after 10 years of leading the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) has alarmed the biomedical research community and heightened concerns that NIH is becoming politicized.

Some outside observers had already been questioning how much control NIH Director Jayanta “Jay” Bhattacharya has over the world’s biggest biomedical funder. And Koroshetz’s departure means 14 of NIH’s 27 institutes and centers now lack a permanent leader.

Koroshetz informed staff and colleagues late Friday that his reappointment to a third 5-year term “has been denied,” according to an email obtained by Science on Saturday morning. (STAT was the first media outlet to report the news.) The neurologist’s last day was apparently Sunday. He wrote in his Friday email that “there’s some possibility for a short term extension, but iffy at best.” He also apologized for his “abrupt” message and expressed pride in his staff, who “have worked through adversity and are more independent and focused than ever.”

Boston Children’s Hospital pediatric neurologist Ann Poduri, who briefly worked as deputy director at NINDS under Koroshetz, says his removal is “profoundly disappointing” and “one of many routine decisions being made that will have major repercussions. … It is leaving the neuroscience community vulnerable.”

After studying Huntington disease and stroke treatments at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital, Koroshetz joined NINDS in 2007 as deputy director before moving up to director after his predecessor, Story Landis, retired. In addition to leading the $2.8 billion enterprise, the sixth largest of NIH’s institutes and centers, he headed several large cross-institute programs, including the Brain Research Through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) Initiative and the Helping to End Addiction Long-term Initiative, which studied ways to address the opioid addiction crisis.

Koroshetz was coming up for renewal on 1 November and had, according to several NIH sources, gotten a positive internal job review and won Bhattacharya’s recommendation that he be reappointed. But he received only temporary extensions through 28 December.

Koroshetz’s removal has drawn an outpouring of concern from researchers as well as patient advocates. The American Academy of Neurology “expresses significant concern over the abrupt decision” to end the contract of “a highly respected leader” without any formal announcement or plan for his successor, the group said in a 27 December statement.

NIH referred a request for comment to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), which oversees the agency. HHS declined to comment. Koroshetz did not respond to an email to his personal account seeking comment.

“He will be missed … Walter cares very deeply about NINDS and the people and the patients and the mission,” says a senior scientist in the institute’s in-house research program who asked not to be identified. Noting that Koroshetz’s dismissal adds to NIH’s many leadership vacancies, this person says the decision was “nothing surprising, but feels shocking because just more uncertainty.”

Michael Greicius, an Alzheimer’s disease researcher at Stanford University, expressed fear about who might become the institute’s new leader. Koroshetz “was a steady hand at the helm of NINDS over the last decade (and especially over the last year which must have felt like a decade to him). I’m sorry to see him go and shudder at the prospect of a Jay Bhattacharya-endorsed replacement,” Grecius posted on Bluesky.

Poduri, who was at NINDS from October 2024 to July, says she left partly because hiring and purchasing restrictions imposed by HHS made it impossible to move her university lab studying epilepsy genetics to NIH. During her time there, she was impressed by Koroshetz’s “ability to collaborate across disciplines and bring people together around a shared commitment to science.” His years of experience during a chaotic time also brought needed stability, she says.

Koroshetz’s firing follows the recent removal of Richard Woychik, director of NIH’s National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences since 2020, whom Bhattacharya had also recommended be reappointed. Woychik was suddenly moved to a position in the NIH director’s office in October and replaced with a close friend of Vice President JD Vance.

As of today, another NIH institute director is also in limbo: Michael Chiang, head of the National Eye Institute since 2020, also reached the end of a temporary extension on Sunday and had Bhattacharya’s support for a second term. Chiang, who was on vacation this week, declined to comment.

For most of the vacant leadership positions, NIH has not formed the typical search committees with external scientists to find candidates. Instead, Bhattacharya is soliciting applications that he, institute directors, and others at NIH will review, a knowledgeable source tells Science.

Update, 30 December, 5 p.m.: Today in a staff memo, Bhattacharya formally announced Koroshetz’s departure as well as an extension of his service to 24 January 2026. “Dr. Koroshetz’s performance as Director has been exceptional; however, the Department of Health and Human Services has elected to pursue a leadership transition,” the memo states.