Raised on a small farm in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley, Collins was home schooled by his mother until the sixth grade. He attended Robert E. Lee High School. He is the youngest of four sons, which includes his brother, Dr. Fletcher Collins, who currently holds the title of Assistant Head of Middle School at Collegiate School in Richmond, Virginia. Throughout most of Francis's high school and college years, the aspiring chemist had little interest in what he then considered the "messy" field of biology. What he refers to as his "formative education" was received at the University of Virginia, where he earned a B.S. in Chemistry in 1970. He went on to attain a Ph.D. in physical chemistry at Yale University in 1974. While at Yale, however, a course in biochemistry sparked his interest in the