A Message to the Cancer Research Community

April 1, 2015 by Douglas Lowy, M.D.

Douglas Lowy, M.D.
Acting Director, National Cancer Institute

As many of you are aware, I have become Acting Director of the National Cancer Institute (NCI). I have known many of you for years, and look forward to working together in my new role at the Institute. I would like to thank Harold Varmus for his enlightened leadership of NCI since 2010 and wish him well in his new pursuits.

I fully intend to be an “active” Acting Director, because the challenges and opportunities we face demand no less. It is essential that we come together as a community to build understanding and support for investing in cancer research at this time of great scientific opportunity, as recently outlined in the NCI Annual Plan and Budget Proposal for FY2016: Building on Opportunities in Cancer Research.

I hope to see many of you at the American Association for Cancer Research annual meeting later this month, where I will speak about my initial plans and priorities at NCI. I will also be joining National Institutes of Health Director Dr. Francis Collins at the April 30 Senate appropriations hearing on the NIH budget.

I deeply appreciate your dedication to and support for NCI’s mission of advancing cancer research on behalf of patients everywhere.

Doug Lowy