Harold Varmus

Harold Varmus is one of the founding figures of modern cancer molecular biology. Together with his longtime collaborator J. Michael Bishop at UCSF, he demonstrated in the mid-1970s that the transforming gene (v-src) carried by Rous sarcoma virus — a known tumor-causing retrovirus — is not a viral creation but is instead a mutated version of a normal cellular gene present in the genomes of virtually all vertebrate animals. This revolutionary discovery gave birth to the concept of the proto-oncogene and earned Varmus and Bishop the 1989 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Before Varmus and Bishop's work, the dominant theory held that oncogenic retroviruses brought foreign "cancer genes" into cells. Their findings overturned this view: normal cells carry ancestral versions of oncogenes (proto-oncogenes) that become activated through mutation, amplification, or chromosomal rearrangement during carcinogenesis. The implications were transformative — cancer is fundamentally a genetic disease arising from corruption of normal cellular regulatory programs. Varmus extended his molecular oncology research to investigate how retroviruses integrate into host genomes, leading to fundamental insights into HIV biology that informed antiviral drug development. He showed that retroviral integration is not random but is guided by specific viral and cellular factors. As NIH Director from 1993 to 1999 — one of the most consequential periods in modern biomedical science — Varmus championed fundamental research, oversaw a doubling of the NIH budget, and launched the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine. He returned to run the NCI from 2010 to 2015, focusing on precision oncology and the Cancer Genome Atlas initiative. At Weill Cornell Medicine, Varmus continues research on the genetics of lung adenocarcinoma, particularly the roles of NKX2-1 (TTF-1) transcription factor and KRAS mutations in lung cancer initiation and maintenance. He is a leading voice for science policy, global health equity, and open-access publishing (having co-founded PubMed Central).

Harold Varmus 是现代癌症分子生物学的奠基人之一。他与 J. Michael Bishop 合作证明，劳斯肉瘤病毒携带的转化基因 v-src 并非病毒创造，而是脊椎动物基因组中正常细胞基因的突变版本，由此诞生了原癌基因的概念，并因此荣获1989年诺贝尔生理学或医学奖。 这一发现彻底推翻了癌症源于外来病毒基因的主流理论，确立了癌症是正常细胞调控程序被破坏所致的遗传性疾病这一范式。作为美国国立卫生研究院院长和国家癌症研究所所长，Varmus 深刻塑造了美国生物医学研究政策。在威尔康奈尔医学院，他继续研究肺腺癌的遗传学。