Harold E. Varmus

Biography

Harold Eliot Varmus was born on December 18, 1939, in Oceanside, New York. He completed high school at Freeport High School and went on to study at Amherst College. He continued at Harvard University and later attended Columbia University, where he got his medical degree from the Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons. This education prepared him well for a career in medical research and scientific leadership.

Varmus's most important scientific achievement came from working with J. Michael Bishop on retroviruses and their connection to cancer. Their research showed that certain cancer-causing genes, or oncogenes, come from regular cellular genes, not just from viruses. This discovery changed how people understood cancer biology by showing that cancer could be due to changes in genes already present in cells. Their findings helped explain the molecular basis of how cells become cancerous.

Outside the lab, Varmus has taken on several key leadership roles in American science. He was the director of the National Institutes of Health from 1993 to 1999, leading the largest biomedical research agency during a time of great scientific progress and budget growth. Later, President Barack Obama made him the 14th Director of the National Cancer Institute, a role he held from 2010 to 2015. In this job, he set national priorities for cancer research and led initiatives to speed up progress in cancer prevention, diagnosis, and treatment.

Now, Varmus is the Lewis Thomas University Professor of Medicine at Weill Cornell Medicine and a senior associate at the New York Genome Center. His work still has an impact on biomedical research, especially in cancer biology and genomics. During his career, he has received many honors for his scientific discoveries and service, including membership in top organizations and several international awards.