Harold E. Varmus

Harold E. Varmus, born on December eighteenth, nineteen thirty-nine, is a distinguished American virologist and university educator. He currently holds the prestigious position of Lewis Thomas University Professor of Medicine at Weill Cornell Medicine, while also serving as a senior associate at the New York Genome Center.

Varmus is renowned for his groundbreaking work in the field of cancer research, particularly for his co-discovery of the cellular origin of retroviral oncogenes. This significant achievement earned him the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in nineteen eighty-nine, an honor he shared with fellow scientist J. Michael Bishop.

In addition to his research accolades, Varmus has held prominent leadership roles in national health organizations. He served as the director of the National Institutes of Health from nineteen ninety-three to nineteen ninety-nine and later became the fourteenth Director of the National Cancer Institute from twenty-ten to twenty-fifteen, a position he was appointed to by President Barack Obama.