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Patients Expected to Benefit from New Boss at National Cancer Institute

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You can expect some changes at the National Cancer Institute (NCI), considered the world's pre-eminent cancer research organization, following this week’s appointment of Dr. Harold E. Varmus as the new director.

Now president of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York, Varmus is a Nobel Prize-winning biologist and former director of the National Institutes of Health. The cancer institute has a budget of $5.1 billion this year.

The federal cancer program has been subject to much criticism and Varmus is expected to bring significant change. The National Academy of Sciences said in a recent report that the NCI – which evaluates the clinical effectiveness of cancer treatments – was nearing “a state of crisis.” A key concern is that the program is falling short of its potential to conduct the timely, large-scale, innovative clinical trials needed to improve patient care.

The report recommends NCI maintain a robust cancer clinical trials network by preserving historical strengths while improving components that aren’t working well with four overarching goals:
• Improving the speed and efficiency of the design, launch, and conduct of clinical trials
• Making optimal use of scientific innovations
• Improving selection, prioritization, support, and completion of clinical trials
• Fostering expanded participation of both patients and physicians

Ellen V. Sigal, chairwoman of Friends of Cancer Research, a public education group, told the New York Times, “Dr. Varmus’s experience at Memorial Sloan-Kettering has given him a perspective he did not get running a laboratory or N.I.H. He appreciates how important it is to use basic research to meet the needs of patients.”

Dr. Otis W. Brawley, the chief medical officer of the American Cancer Society, said he was “thrilled and delighted” by the selection of Varmus.

Susan G. Komen for the Cure applauded the selection. “Dr. Varmus is uniquely experienced to bring people and institutions together to accomplish significant change,” said Nancy G. Brinker, founder and CEO. “He understands both large government systems and the individual needs of cancer patients and will bring renewed energy to this important American scientific center. We look forward to working with him as he shapes and refines NCI’s goals.”

According to Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC), much of Varmus' scientific work was conducted during 23 years as a faculty member at the University of California, San Francisco, Medical School, where he and Dr. J. Michael Bishop and their co-workers demonstrated the cellular origins of the oncogene of a chicken retrovirus. This discovery led to the isolation of many cellular genes that normally control growth and development and are frequently mutated in human cancer. For this work, Bishop and Varmus received many awards, including the 1989 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine. Varmus is also widely recognized for his studies of the replication cycles of retroviruses and hepatitis B viruses, the functions of genes implicated in cancer, and the development of mouse models of human cancer.

In 1993, Varmus was named by President Clinton to serve as the Director of the National Institutes of Health, a position he held until the end of 1999. During his tenure at the NIH, he initiated many changes in the conduct of intramural and extramural research programs; recruited new leaders for most of the important positions at the NIH; planned three major buildings on the NIH campus, including the Hatfield Clinical Research Center; and helped to initiate the five-year doubling of the NIH budget.

Since his arrival at MSKCC, Varmus has emphasized opportunities to harness recent advances in the biological sciences to improve the care of patients with cancer. Under his leadership, the scientific programs have been reorganized and enlarged, a new research building has been constructed, and new graduate training programs have been established in chemical biology and computational biology.

In addition, he has overseen the construction of new clinical facilities, the founding of a hospital-based program in translational research and the development of the Tri-Institutional Stem Cell Initiative and the Starr Cancer Consortium involving five research institutions. To ensure that MSKCC is promoting high quality cancer care for all citizens of New York and equal opportunities for its employees, he helped found and oversee a new cancer clinic in central Harlem (the Ralph Lauren Center for Cancer Care and Prevention) and new programs for diversity and gender equity.

Varmus has authored more than 300 scientific papers and five books, including an introduction to the genetic basis of cancer for a general audience and a memoir, The Art and Politics of Science (Norton, 2009). He has received the National Medal of Science, the Vannevar Bush Award, and several honorary degrees and other prizes, in addition to the Nobel Prize.

Resources:

http://www.iom.edu/Reports/2010/A-National-Cancer-Clinical-Trials-System-for-the-21st-Century-Reinvigorating-the-NCI-Cooperative.aspx

http://www.cancer.gov/aboutnci/excellence-in-research

http://ww5.komen.org/KomenNewsArticle.aspx?id=6442452101

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/18/health/18cancer.html?ref=health

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_E._Varmus

http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/1989/varmus-autobio.html

http://www.mskcc.org/mskcc/html/1780.cfm

Add a Comment1 Comments

apicollo

What does this mean to all of us contributing breast cancer patients? All this time, I felt good about donating to the cause and find out the my dollars are being wasted on inefficeint management with the research hospital being at a crisis point in not being able to handle the research burden. The is a sad state of affairs for this very well resepected research hospital. With the best minds in the business running this hospital, how did this happen. More discouraging is the search for a cure has been going backwords instead of plowing forward. 5.1 billion annual budget should produce something besides confustion at the hospital. Very sad...

May 23, 2010 - 3:47pm

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