Douglas Lowy, MD, has been appointed as the Acting Director of the National Cancer Institute (NCI), a part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). He is Chief of the Laboratory of Cellular Oncology in the Center for Cancer Research at NCI and has served as NCI’s deputy director since July 2010.

Harold Varmus, MD, stepped down from the post at the end of March 2015 after leading the NCI for nearly five years.

Dr. Lowy earned his MD from New York University School of Medicine and trained in internal medicine at Stanford University and in dermatology at Yale University. His research is focused on the biology of papillomaviruses and the regulation of normal and neoplastic growth. Along with his colleague, John Schiller, PhD, Dr. Lowy received the National Medal of Technology and Innovation, awarded in 2014 by President Obama, “for developing the virus-like particles and related technologies that led to the generation of effective vaccines that specifically targeted HPV and related cancers”. Drs. Lowy and Schiller have also been honored with the 2007 Federal Employee of the Year Service to America Medal from the Partnership for Public Service and the 2011 Albert B. Sabin Gold Medal Award. Dr. Lowy is a member of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) and the Institute of Medicine (IOM). He was awarded the 2007 Medal of Honor for Basic Research from the American Cancer Society and was recently named as the recipient of the 2015 Harrington Prize, awarded by The American Society for Clinical Investigation and the Harrington Discovery Institute.

Dr. Varmus, co-recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1989 for “discovery of the cellular origin of retroviral oncogenes,” previously served as …