Varmus to lead NCI

After months of rumors, President Barack Obama has finally announced that linkurl:Harold Varmus;http://www.mskcc.org/mskcc/html/515.cfm will be the next head of the National Cancer Institute at the National Institutes of Health, the linkurl:__New York Times__;http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/18/health/18cancer.html reported yesterday (17th May).Image: Public Library of Science Varmus will be the first Nobel Prize winner and the first former-NIH director to lead the NCI. The geneticist, who has wo

| 1 min read

Register for free to listen to this article
Listen with Speechify
0:00
1:00
Share
After months of rumors, President Barack Obama has finally announced that linkurl:Harold Varmus;http://www.mskcc.org/mskcc/html/515.cfm will be the next head of the National Cancer Institute at the National Institutes of Health, the linkurl:__New York Times__;http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/18/health/18cancer.html reported yesterday (17th May).
Image: Public Library of Science
Varmus will be the first Nobel Prize winner and the first former-NIH director to lead the NCI. The geneticist, who has worked most recently as president of New York City's Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, won the 1989 linkurl:Nobel Prize;http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/1989/varmus-autobio.html in Physiology or Medicine for discovering the cellular origin of retroviral oncogenes, and served as NIH director from 1993 to 1999. In March, __The Cancer Letter__ ran a linkurl:story;http://cancerletter.com/tcl-blog/copy130_of_whats-going-on-with-nih reporting that Varmus was likely to get the top spot at NCI, but he rejected the scuttlebutt, writing in an email to linkurl:__ScienceInsider__,;http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2010/03/varmus-dispels-cancer-institute.html "I have no idea where you are getting such rumors but I can tell you that no one from the only reputable source, the White House, has contacted me!" The 70-year-old Varmus starts his new job at NCI in mid-July.
**__Related stories:__***linkurl:Varmus to lead NCI?;http://www.the-scientist.com/blog/display/57223/
[18th March 2010]*linkurl:Varmus to quit as Sloan-Kettering head;http://www.the-scientist.com/blog/display/56268/
[12th January 2010]*linkurl:Varmus, Lubchenco top Obama team;http://www.the-scientist.com/blog/display/55317/
[22nd December 2008]
Interested in reading more?

Become a Member of

The Scientist Logo
Receive full access to more than 35 years of archives, as well as TS Digest, digital editions of The Scientist, feature stories, and much more!
Already a member? Login Here

Meet the Author

  • Bob Grant

    From 2017 to 2022, Bob Grant was Editor in Chief of The Scientist, where he started in 2007 as a Staff Writer.
Share
May digest 2025 cover
May 2025, Issue 1

Study Confirms Safety of Genetically Modified T Cells

A long-term study of nearly 800 patients demonstrated a strong safety profile for T cells engineered with viral vectors.

View this Issue
iStock

TaqMan Probe & Assays: Unveil What's Possible Together

Thermo Fisher Logo
Meet Aunty and Tackle Protein Stability Questions in Research and Development

Meet Aunty and Tackle Protein Stability Questions in Research and Development

Unchained Labs
Detecting Residual Cell Line-Derived DNA with Droplet Digital PCR

Detecting Residual Cell Line-Derived DNA with Droplet Digital PCR

Bio-Rad
How technology makes PCR instruments easier to use.

Making Real-Time PCR More Straightforward

Thermo Fisher Logo

Products

fujirebio-square-logo

Fujirebio Receives Marketing Clearance for Lumipulse® G pTau 217/ β-Amyloid 1-42 Plasma Ratio In-Vitro Diagnostic Test

The Scientist Placeholder Image

Biotium Launches New Phalloidin Conjugates with Extended F-actin Staining Stability for Greater Imaging Flexibility

Leica Microsystems Logo

Latest AI software simplifies image analysis and speeds up insights for scientists

BioSkryb Genomics Logo

BioSkryb Genomics and Tecan introduce a single-cell multiomics workflow for sequencing-ready libraries in under ten hours