Harold Varmus, co-recipient of the Nobel Prize for studies of the genetic basis of cancer, served as Director of the National Cancer Institute from 2010 to 2015, after 10 years as President of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and six years as Director of the National Institutes of Health. He is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Medicine and is involved in several initiatives to promote science and health in developing countries.
The author of over 350 scientific papers and five books, including a recent memoir titled The Art and Politics of Science, he was a co-chair of President Obama’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, was a co-founder and Chairman of the Board of the Public Library of Science, and chaired the Scientific Board of the Gates Foundation Grand Challenges in Global Health. He is currently the Lewis Thomas University Professor at Weill Cornell Medical College and a member of the New York Genome Center.