Varmus head of National Cancer Institute!

cool!

I guess it makes sense - where does he go after heading MSKCC? NCI makes sense to me =)

He was an English major! I did not expect that. Score one for my team.

Oh, rock on! I love that little dude!

I don't buy it. Why would someone who was the director of NIH ever wanna be the head of an IC? It'd be like a former POTUS becoming a state governor.

I don't buy it. Why would someone who was the director of NIH ever wanna be the head of an IC? It'd be like a former POTUS becoming a state governor.

Not quite because the NCI director is a presidential appointee, so at least in an organizational chart sense is equal to the NIH director, not under him. The practical reality is more complicated, but it is still true that the NCI director is considerably more indendendent than other IC directors.

from the Secretary, HHS

To: NIH Staff
From: Secretary Sebelius
I am very pleased to bring news that President Obama has announced his intent to appoint Dr. Harold Varmus to serve as Director of the National Cancer Institute. Among his many professional distinctions, Dr. Varmus won a Nobel Prize for his work on the genetic basis of cancer in 1989, and, in 1993, was named by President Clinton to serve as Director of the National Institutes of Health, a position he held until 2000. Most recently, Dr. Varmus served as President of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City, one of the premier cancer research and treatment institutions in the world.