Conversations in Science with Dan Rather and Harold Varmus: From Oncogenes to PLOS

https://www.ibiology.org/profiles/plos

Dr. Harold Varmus talks to Dan Rather about his journey from literature major to scientist, and from the discovery of oncogenes to creating PLoS. Varmus reflects on his time as a researcher, as Director of the NIH, and on the importance of open communication in science. He ends by emphasizing why good science communication is important to engage more people in conversations about science.

Speaker Biography:
Harold Varmus is currently the Lewis Thomas University Professor of Medicine at Weill Cornell Medicine and a senior associate at the New York Genome Center. He previously was the Director of the National Institutes of Health (1993-1999), president and CEO of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York (2000 - 2010), and Director of the National Cancer Institute (2010 - 2015). In 1989, while on faculty at the University of California, San Francisco, Varmus and J. M. Bishop won the Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physiology for their work on oncogenes. Varmus has also been awarded the Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research, the Alfred P. Sloan Prize, and is a foreign member of the Royal Society. Varmus is a co-founder of the Public Library of Science and is closely involved with numerous global health organizations.