White House Appoints New NCI Director

Medical oncologist W. Kimryn Rathmell, MD, PhD, will soon take the helm of the National Cancer Institute (NCI) as its new director.

Late last week, US President Joe Biden announced the appointment of Rathmell, a renal cancer expert and chair of medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, to replace former NCI head Monica Bertagnolli, MD, after her recent Senate confirmation as the new director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

Rathmell "is the talented and visionary leader the National Cancer Institute needs to drive us toward ending cancer as we know it," Biden said in a White House press statement.

Rathmell's appointment doesn't require Senate confirmation. She will start in her new position in December.

Rathmell's research has focused on "understanding the underlying biology" of renal cancer, including the use of biomarkers to detect disease and guide treatment. The goal of her lab at Vanderbilt "is to identify fundamental aspects of the biology of renal cell carcinomas, to develop strategies to improve the treatment of cancers based on biomarker approaches to defining drivers of the cancer phenotype, or developing better ways to detect these cancers earlier."

Over the past 30 years, she has authored about 200 articles that were published in an array of leading peer-reviewed journals, such as The New England Journal of Medicine and Nature.

In addition to her roles at Vanderbilt, she has served on the NCI's Board of Scientific Advisors and has been a member of the NIH's Cancer Genome Atlas Program. She has also served in various positions with and has won awards from several oncology groups, including the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) and the American Association for Cancer Research (ACCR). In 2022, she was elected to the National Academy of Medicine, and earlier this year, she was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

ASCO and the AACR both said they "applaud" Rathmell's appointment.

ASCO CEO Clifford Hudis, MD, said his group is "delighted by the selection of Dr Rathmell to direct the NCI. She is an exceptional leader who is well-suited to guide the NCI through the unique challenges and opportunities ahead in cancer research."

AACR CEO Margaret Foti, MD, PhD, echoed these sentiments: "We are thrilled about Dr Rathmell's appointment, and the AACR looks forward to working with Dr Rathmell in the months and years to come toward our shared vision of a world without cancer."

M. Alexander Otto is a physician assistant with a master's degree in medical science and a journalism degree from Newhouse. He is an award-winning medical journalist who worked for several major news outlets before joining Medscape. Alex is also an MIT Knight Science Journalism fellow. Email: aotto@mdedge.com

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Cite this: White House Appoints New NCI Director - Medscape - Nov 22, 2023.

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