Harold E. Varmus
Encyclopedia
Harold Elliot Varmus is an American
Nobel Prize
-winning scientist and the 14th and current Director of the National Cancer Institute
, a post he was appointed to by President Barack Obama
. He was a co-recipient (along with J. Michael Bishop
) of the 1989 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
for discovery of the cell
ular origin of retroviral
oncogene
s.
He also serves as one of three co-Chairs of the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.
. In 1957, he enrolled at Amherst College
, intending to follow in his father's footsteps as a medical doctor, but eventually graduating with a B.A. in English literature
. He went on to earn a graduate degree in English at Harvard University
in 1962 before changing his mind once again and applying to medical schools. He got rejected from Harvard Medical School twice. That same year, he entered the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons
and later worked at a missionary hospital in Bareilly
, India
and the Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital. As an alternative to serving militarily in the Vietnam War
, Varmus joined the Public Health Service at the National Institutes of Health
in 1968. Working under Ira Pastan
, he researched the regulation of bacteria
l gene expression by cyclic AMP. In 1970, he began post-doctoral studies in Bishop's lab at University of California, San Francisco
. There, he and Bishop performed the oncogene research that would win them the Nobel Prize. He became a faculty member at UCSF in 1972 and a professor in 1979. In 1989, Bishop and Varmus were awarded the Nobel Prize. Varmus described the work in his Nobel lecture.
From 1993 to 1999, he served as Director of the National Institutes of Health
. As the NIH director, Varmus was credited with nearly doubling the research agency's budget. From 2000 to 2010, he was President of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center
in New York City
. He was also the Chairman of the Geoffrey Beene Cancer Research Center at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. From 2002 to 2005, he served as a trustee of Columbia University
.
On January 12, 2010, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center announced that Varmus "has asked the MSKCC Boards of Overseers and Managers to begin a search for his successor." The announcement also stated, "Varmus indicated that he plans to continue in his present position until a successor has been identified, and he will remain the head of his laboratory in the Cancer Biology and Genetics Program at the Sloan-Kettering Institute and an active member of the teaching faculty."
On May 18, 2010, Varmus was nominated to be the director of the National Cancer Institute
, and he began his tenure as NCI director on July 12, 2010.
Beginning during his tenure as NIH director, Varmus has been a champion of an open access system for scientific papers, arguing that scientists should have control over the dissemination of their research rather than journal editors. He has advocated a system in which journals make their articles freely available on PubMed Central
six months after publication. He is co-founder and chairman of the board of directors of the Public Library of Science
, a not-for-profit open access publisher, and he also sits on the board of trustees of BioMed Central
, the largest publisher of open-access journals. He currently serves on the advisory boards of the Campaign to Defend the Constitution
, an organization dedicated to opposing the religious right, and Scientists and Engineers for America
, an organization focused on promoting sound science in American government.
He is also a 2001 recipient of the National Medal of Science
, served on the board of the Science Initiative Group
and received an honorary degree in 2010 from the University of Massachusetts Medical School
.
the New York City-based advocacy group for pedestrians and cyclists. He is also a runner, rower, and fisherman. He has been married to Constance Casey since 1969 and has two sons, Jacob and Christopher. He and his son Jacob, a trumpet player, have performed a series of concerts entitled "Genes and Jazz" at the Guggenheim
and the Smithsonian.
Barack Obama
(D-Illinois) for the 2008 presidential election
. He has been selected as one of co-chairs of the Council of Advisors on Science and Technology to serve in the Obama administration.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
Nobel Prize
Nobel Prize
The Nobel Prizes are annual international awards bestowed by Scandinavian committees in recognition of cultural and scientific advances. The will of the Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, established the prizes in 1895...
-winning scientist and the 14th and current Director of the National Cancer Institute
National Cancer Institute
The National Cancer Institute is part of the National Institutes of Health , which is one of 11 agencies that are part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The NCI coordinates the U.S...
, a post he was appointed to by President Barack Obama
Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office. Obama previously served as a United States Senator from Illinois, from January 2005 until he resigned following his victory in the 2008 presidential election.Born in...
. He was a co-recipient (along with J. Michael Bishop
J. Michael Bishop
-External links:**...
) of the 1989 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine administered by the Nobel Foundation, is awarded once a year for outstanding discoveries in the field of life science and medicine. It is one of five Nobel Prizes established in 1895 by Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, in his will...
for discovery of the cell
Cell (biology)
The cell is the basic structural and functional unit of all known living organisms. It is the smallest unit of life that is classified as a living thing, and is often called the building block of life. The Alberts text discusses how the "cellular building blocks" move to shape developing embryos....
ular origin of retroviral
Retrovirus
A retrovirus is an RNA virus that is duplicated in a host cell using the reverse transcriptase enzyme to produce DNA from its RNA genome. The DNA is then incorporated into the host's genome by an integrase enzyme. The virus thereafter replicates as part of the host cell's DNA...
oncogene
Oncogene
An oncogene is a gene that has the potential to cause cancer. In tumor cells, they are often mutated or expressed at high levels.An oncogene is a gene found in the chromosomes of tumor cells whose activation is associated with the initial and continuing conversion of normal cells into cancer...
s.
He also serves as one of three co-Chairs of the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.
Biography
Varmus was born to Jewish parents of Eastern European descent in Oceanside, New YorkOceanside, New York
Oceanside is a hamlet located in the south part of the town of Hempstead, Nassau County, New York. The population was 32,109 at the 2010 census.-History:...
. In 1957, he enrolled at Amherst College
Amherst College
Amherst College is a private liberal arts college located in Amherst, Massachusetts, United States. Amherst is an exclusively undergraduate four-year institution and enrolled 1,744 students in the fall of 2009...
, intending to follow in his father's footsteps as a medical doctor, but eventually graduating with a B.A. in English literature
English literature
English literature is the literature written in the English language, including literature composed in English by writers not necessarily from England; for example, Robert Burns was Scottish, James Joyce was Irish, Joseph Conrad was Polish, Dylan Thomas was Welsh, Edgar Allan Poe was American, J....
. He went on to earn a graduate degree in English at Harvard University
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
in 1962 before changing his mind once again and applying to medical schools. He got rejected from Harvard Medical School twice. That same year, he entered the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons
Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons
Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, often known as P&S, is a graduate school of Columbia University that is located on the health sciences campus in the Washington Heights neighborhood of Manhattan...
and later worked at a missionary hospital in Bareilly
Bareilly
Bareilly is a prominent city in Bareilly district in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. Standing on the Ramganga river, it is the capital of the Bareilly division and the geographical region Rohilkhand...
, India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
and the Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital. As an alternative to serving militarily in the Vietnam War
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
, Varmus joined the Public Health Service at the National Institutes of Health
National Institutes of Health
The National Institutes of Health are an agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services and are the primary agency of the United States government responsible for biomedical and health-related research. Its science and engineering counterpart is the National Science Foundation...
in 1968. Working under Ira Pastan
Ira Pastan
thumb|rightIra Pastan is an American scientist. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, a Fellow of the AAAS and the American Society of Microbiology. In 2009, he was awarded the prestigious International Antonio Feltrinelli Prize for Medicine...
, he researched the regulation of bacteria
Bacteria
Bacteria are a large domain of prokaryotic microorganisms. Typically a few micrometres in length, bacteria have a wide range of shapes, ranging from spheres to rods and spirals...
l gene expression by cyclic AMP. In 1970, he began post-doctoral studies in Bishop's lab at University of California, San Francisco
University of California, San Francisco
The University of California, San Francisco is one of the world's leading centers of health sciences research, patient care, and education. UCSF's medical, pharmacy, dentistry, nursing, and graduate schools are among the top health science professional schools in the world...
. There, he and Bishop performed the oncogene research that would win them the Nobel Prize. He became a faculty member at UCSF in 1972 and a professor in 1979. In 1989, Bishop and Varmus were awarded the Nobel Prize. Varmus described the work in his Nobel lecture.
From 1993 to 1999, he served as Director of the National Institutes of Health
National Institutes of Health
The National Institutes of Health are an agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services and are the primary agency of the United States government responsible for biomedical and health-related research. Its science and engineering counterpart is the National Science Foundation...
. As the NIH director, Varmus was credited with nearly doubling the research agency's budget. From 2000 to 2010, he was President of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center
Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center
Memorial Sloan–Kettering Cancer Center is a cancer treatment and research institution founded in 1884 as the New York Cancer Hospital...
in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
. He was also the Chairman of the Geoffrey Beene Cancer Research Center at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. From 2002 to 2005, he served as a trustee of Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
.
On January 12, 2010, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center announced that Varmus "has asked the MSKCC Boards of Overseers and Managers to begin a search for his successor." The announcement also stated, "Varmus indicated that he plans to continue in his present position until a successor has been identified, and he will remain the head of his laboratory in the Cancer Biology and Genetics Program at the Sloan-Kettering Institute and an active member of the teaching faculty."
On May 18, 2010, Varmus was nominated to be the director of the National Cancer Institute
National Cancer Institute
The National Cancer Institute is part of the National Institutes of Health , which is one of 11 agencies that are part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The NCI coordinates the U.S...
, and he began his tenure as NCI director on July 12, 2010.
Beginning during his tenure as NIH director, Varmus has been a champion of an open access system for scientific papers, arguing that scientists should have control over the dissemination of their research rather than journal editors. He has advocated a system in which journals make their articles freely available on PubMed Central
PubMed Central
PubMed Central is a free digital database of full-text scientific literature in biomedical and life sciences. It grew from the online Entrez PubMed biomedical literature search system. PubMed Central was developed by the U.S. National Library of Medicine as an online archive of biomedical journal...
six months after publication. He is co-founder and chairman of the board of directors of the Public Library of Science
Public Library of Science
The Public Library of Science is a nonprofit open-access scientific publishing project aimed at creating a library of open access journals and other scientific literature under an open content license...
, a not-for-profit open access publisher, and he also sits on the board of trustees of BioMed Central
BioMed Central
BioMed Central is a UK-based, for-profit scientific publisher specialising in open access journal publication. BMC, and its sister companies Chemistry Central and PhysMath Central, publish over 200 scientific journals. Most BMC journals are now published only online. BMC describes itself as the...
, the largest publisher of open-access journals. He currently serves on the advisory boards of the Campaign to Defend the Constitution
Campaign to Defend the Constitution
Campaign to Defend the Constitution was an American online organization founded in September, 2005 to support the constitutional separation of church and state and to oppose what it perceived as the growing influence of the religious right. It was a project of the Tides Center, a non-profit...
, an organization dedicated to opposing the religious right, and Scientists and Engineers for America
Scientists and Engineers for America
-Mission statement:The organization's mission statement states:-SHARP Network:The Science, Health and Related Policies Network is a wiki to track congressional representatives, senators, and candidates as well as presidential candidates....
, an organization focused on promoting sound science in American government.
He is also a 2001 recipient of the National Medal of Science
National Medal of Science
The National Medal of Science is an honor bestowed by the President of the United States to individuals in science and engineering who have made important contributions to the advancement of knowledge in the fields of behavioral and social sciences, biology, chemistry, engineering, mathematics and...
, served on the board of the Science Initiative Group
Science Initiative Group
The Science Initiative Group is an international team of scientific leaders and supporters dedicated to fostering science in developing countries. SIG was formed to facilitate the Millennium Science Initiative ....
and received an honorary degree in 2010 from the University of Massachusetts Medical School
University of Massachusetts Medical School
The University of Massachusetts Medical School is one of five campuses of the University of Massachusetts system and is home to three schools: the School of Medicine, the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, the Graduate School of Nursing; a biomedical research enterprise; and a range of...
.
Private life
Varmus is an avid bicyclist and an Advisory Committee member of Transportation AlternativesTransportation Alternatives
Transportation Alternatives is a non-profit organization in New York City which seeks to change New York City's transportation priorities to encourage and increase non-polluting, quiet, city-friendly travel and decrease private car use...
the New York City-based advocacy group for pedestrians and cyclists. He is also a runner, rower, and fisherman. He has been married to Constance Casey since 1969 and has two sons, Jacob and Christopher. He and his son Jacob, a trumpet player, have performed a series of concerts entitled "Genes and Jazz" at the Guggenheim
Guggenheim
Guggenheim may refer to:* Benjamin Guggenheim* Charles Guggenheim* Davis Guggenheim* Guggenheim Building* Guggenheim family* Guggenheim Fellowship* Guggenheim Museum * Harry Frank Guggenheim* John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation...
and the Smithsonian.
Politics
Varmus endorsed then-United States SenatorUnited States Senate
The United States Senate is the upper house of the bicameral legislature of the United States, and together with the United States House of Representatives comprises the United States Congress. The composition and powers of the Senate are established in Article One of the U.S. Constitution. Each...
Barack Obama
Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office. Obama previously served as a United States Senator from Illinois, from January 2005 until he resigned following his victory in the 2008 presidential election.Born in...
(D-Illinois) for the 2008 presidential election
United States presidential election, 2008
The United States presidential election of 2008 was the 56th quadrennial presidential election. It was held on November 4, 2008. Democrat Barack Obama, then the junior United States Senator from Illinois, defeated Republican John McCain, the senior U.S. Senator from Arizona. Obama received 365...
. He has been selected as one of co-chairs of the Council of Advisors on Science and Technology to serve in the Obama administration.
External links
- The Harold Varmus Papers - Profiles in Science, National Library of Medicine
- 1989 Prize Lecture in Physiology or Medicine at NobelPrize.org
- Harold Varmus iBioMagazine talk: "How I Became a Scientist"
- President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology
- President-elect Obama introduces Dr. Varmus as Co-Chair of PCAST, YouTubeYouTubeYouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....
- President-elect Obama introduces Dr. Varmus as Co-Chair of PCAST, YouTube
- Board member profile at the Public Library of SciencePublic Library of ScienceThe Public Library of Science is a nonprofit open-access scientific publishing project aimed at creating a library of open access journals and other scientific literature under an open content license...
- Harold Varmus iBioMagazine talk: "Changing the Way We Publish"
- Archives:
- Personal Papers of Harold Varmus I - UCSF Archives & Special Collections
- Personal Papers of Harold Varmus II - UCSF Archives & Special Collections
- Personal Papers of Harold Varmus III - UCSF Archives & Special Collections
- Access Excellence Biography
- Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center Biography
- Audio: Harold Varmus in conversation on the BBC World Service discussion show The ForumThe Forum (BBC World Service)The Forum is the BBC World Service's flagship discussion programme. It brings together prominent thinkers from different disciplines and different parts of the world to try and create stimulating discussion, informed by highly distinct academic, artistic and cultural backgrounds.-Format:Each...
- Review: Michael A. Rogawski. "The Art and Politics of Science (book review)" Perspectives in Biology and Medicine 52.1 (2009): 637-642.