Yale Bulletin and Calendar

April 28, 2000

Volume 28, Number 30

Dr. Harold Varmus

Talk by Nobel laureate to
highlight Student Research Day

A talk by Dr. Harold Varmus, Nobel Prize-winner and former director of the National Institutes of Health, will highlight the School of Medicine's Student Research Day on Tuesday, May 9.

Varmus will deliver the 13th annual Farr Lecture at 4:30 p.m. in Rm. 110 of the Jane Ellen Hope Building (JEH), 315 Cedar St. His topic will be "Genes and Cancer: The Quest Continues."

The day's events will also include presentations by final-year medical students on the results of their original scientific research. Yale's medical school is the only one in the country that requires a dissertation based on original research for the M.D. degree, according to Dr. John N. Forrest Jr., professor of medicine and director of the Office of Student Research.

Varmus is currently the president and chief executive officer of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City. He was a co-recipient of the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1989 for research that has increased an understanding of cancer. In 1993 he was named by President Bill Clinton as director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), a position he held until the end of 1999. During his tenure at the NIH, Varmus initiated many changes in the conduct of research programs, recruited new leaders for the organization, planned three major buildings on the NIH campus and helped increase the NIH budget from under $11 billion to nearly $18 billion.

Much of Varmus' scientific work was conducted during a 23-year period at the University of California, San Francisco, where he and Dr. J. Michael Bishop (who shared the Nobel Prize with Varmus) and their coworkers 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. 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 for human cancer. The latter work is the focus of much of the current research in his laboratory.

In addition to authoring over 300 scientific papers and four books, including an introduction to the genetic basis of cancer for a general audience, Varmus has been an adviser to the federal government, pharmaceutical and biotechnology firms and many academic institutions. Currently, he serves on the World Health Organization's Commission on Macroeconomics and Health, advisory committees on electronic publishing and a National Research Council panel on genetically modified organisms. He has been a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences since 1984 and of the Institute of Medicine since 1991.

Student research projects

Student Research Day will begin at noon with a scientific poster session showcasing medical students' research projects in the corridors of the JEH Building.

Five prize-winning graduating students will give oral presentations about their research from 2 to 4 p.m. in Rm. 110, JEH. The students, their degree programs and their research topics are: Aaron Milstone (M.D.), "A Novel Protease Inhibitor from Bloodfeeding Hookworm"; Hanna Kim (M.D.), "The Emergence of Compartmental Organization in the Olfactory Bulb Glomerulus"; John Coombes (M.D.), "Inhibitory SMADs: Patterns of Expression and Effects of Overexpression in Cells of the Osteoblast Lineage"; Elizabeth Harrold (M.D.) "Family History, BRCA1/BRCA2 Status and Local Recurrence in Conservatively Treated Breast Cancer Patients"; and Max Kelz (M.D./Ph.D.), "Delta FosB: A Novel Molecular Switch Regulating Long-term Signaling in Brain and Susceptibility to Cocaine."

Refreshments will follow their presentations at 4 p.m., preceding Varmus' Farr Lecture at 4:30 p.m.

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$3 Million dollar grant to fund research on mental disorder

Talk by Nobel laureate to highlight Student Research Day

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Chertow is honored for environmental work

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