Harold Varmus has had a lifetime of work in scientific research and discovery. (Photo courtesy of http://www.fcihr.ca/front.php)
PATH TO POWER
Harold Varmus was born on Dec. 18, 1939, on the south shore of Long Island, N.Y., a product of the early 20th century emigration of Eastern European Jews to New York City. He grew up in Freeport in a privileged lifestyle before entering Amherst College in 1957 to prepare for medical school.
After graduation, he was accepted into the Harvard University graduate program in English (with a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship) and rejected by Harvard Medical School. He then enrolled in medical school at Columbia University; after graduation, he received his first serious exposure to laboratory science as a clinical associate at the National Institutes of Health.
From there he went to the University of California, San Francisco in 1969, and a year later, joined noted researcher Mike Bishop as a post-doctoral fellow at UC San Francisco. Varmus would spend two decades at UCSF, becoming a faculty member in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology in 1972 and a full professor by 1979.
Eventually, a well-established partnership with Bishop would lead the two to go on to share the Nobel Prize. Since 2000, he has served as the president and CEO of the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City.
Varmus is a well-known speaker on the intersection of politics and science. In addition to advocating for increased health care spending, he has voiced opinions on a wide variety of scientific topics, including cloning, stem-cell research, AIDS, global health and more. His work extends as far as Africa, where he has successfully created programs to reduce malaria.
He received an honorary degree from Amherst College in 1985 and the Alumni Gold Medal from the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1989. He has been the American Cancer Society professor of molecular virology since 1984.
WHY HE MATTERS
Varmus was the co-recipient of the 1989 Nobel Prize in medicine. His research would eventually prove that cancers are driven by cellular gene mutations — and usher in new ways of diagnosing and treating them. This was the work for which he won the Nobel. Varmus has authored more than 300 scientific papers and four books, including an introduction to the genetic basis of cancer for a general audience, and he has been an adviser to the federal government, pharmaceutical and biotechnology firms, and many academic institutions.
POLITICAL CAREER
Varmus was appointed by President Bill Clinton as the director of the National Institutes of Health and served from 1993 to 1999. During his tenure at the NIH, he initiated many changes in the conduct of intramural and extramural research programs and led the effort to double the NIH budget.
IN HIS OWN WORDS
“Science is an inherently paradoxical activity. Nearly all great ideas come from individual minds, and they are often first tested experimentally by a single person,” he wrote in his book, The Art and Politics of Science, published in February 2009. “But validation and acceptance of new information requires communication, convening, and consensus building — activities that involve a community.”
THE ISSUES
Stem cell research
At a 2003 congressional hearing about reshaping the National Institutes of Health research structure, Varmus testified that he was pleased that embryonic stem cell research had received partial funding, but wanted more private medical centers to take the lead in this area to ensure a future for embryonic stem cell study, according to UPI.com. In an interview with the American Scientist online magazine, he said it was “a serious deficiency to limit federal funding of stem cell research during the Bush administration.”
Cancer research
Varmus was one of the writers of a 2005 proposal to create a human cancer genome project, recommending the formation of a project to analyze the human genome comprehensively in many types of cancer. The project would be an attempt to determine the DNA sequence of thousands of tumor samples, looking for mutations that give rise to cancer or sustain it. He was quoted in The New York Times as saying the project could “completely change how we approach cancer.” Varmus was director of the NIH during much of the time that the Human Genome Project was under way, according to the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.
NETWORK
Varmus was appointed to the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology by President Barack Obama in April 2009. “This council represents leaders from many scientific disciplines who will bring a diversity of experience and views,” Obama said in April on the day of the announcement.” I will charge PCAST with advising me about national strategies to nurture and sustain a culture of scientific innovation.”