Harold E. Varmus

My ideal summer day was reading on the porch.

— Harold E. Varmus

I keep encouraging the pharmaceutical companies to put more money into R&D.

— Harold E. Varmus

Science can improve lives in ways that are elegant in design and moving in practice.

— Harold E. Varmus

Tobacco, UV rays, viruses, heredity, and age are the main causes of cancer.

— Harold E. Varmus

Our biggest single theme is trying to make the NIH work better with the same amount of money.

— Harold E. Varmus

In the 1960s and '70s, there wasn't much evidence at all. We knew vaguely the causes of cancer, but methods like genomics…

— Harold E. Varmus

I'm used to being surrounded by really smart 22-year-old students who have no problem saying that something I suggested is not a…

— Harold E. Varmus

Some growths can be detected early, making for increased accuracy in diagnosis. Some can be cured and others controlled.

— Harold E. Varmus

Cancer is a collection of many diseases with common principles, and each disease will have to be understood and more effectively controlled…

— Harold E. Varmus

A major feature of life at the NIH in late 1960s was the extraordinary offering of evening courses for physicians attempting to…

— Harold E. Varmus

When I was the NIH director, I often expressed envy of institute directors: they had the money and ran the scientific programmes.

— Harold E. Varmus

I had learned that science is a rewarding, active process of discovery, not the passive absorption of what others had discovered.

— Harold E. Varmus

Every cancer looks different. Every cancer has similarities to other cancers. And we're trying to milk those differences and similarities to do…

— Harold E. Varmus

When I read about genetics, I see breakthroughs every day. And while I'm trying to learn more about behavioral science, I must…

— Harold E. Varmus

I had learned of Gertrude Steins bon mot that medicine opened all doors. This prompted me, in different moods, to view my…

— Harold E. Varmus

I begin with the premise that behavior is an incredibly important element in medicine. Peoples habits, their willingness to quit smoking, their…

— Harold E. Varmus

I believe that we are going to have a much deeper appreciation of what kinds of abnormalities in cancer cells and in…

— Harold E. Varmus

All basic scientists who look to the NCI for funding should know that I will tolerate no retreat on the study of…

— Harold E. Varmus

From some dilatory reading in the early 1960s, I knew enough about viruses and their association with tumors in animals to understand…

— Harold E. Varmus

I was born in the shadow of World War II, on December 18, 1939, on the South Shore of Long Island, a…

— Harold E. Varmus

A cancer is not simply a lung cancer. It doesn't simply have a certain kind of appearance under the microscope or a…

— Harold E. Varmus

The NCI scientific programme leaders meet regularly to ensure that we are not ignoring highly original proposals and that we are not…

— Harold E. Varmus

I saw my friends in medical school seeming to be more engaged with the real world. That provoked a sort of jealousy,…

— Harold E. Varmus

In general, all cancers have been traditionally characterized by the way they appear under the microscope and the organs in which they…

— Harold E. Varmus

When high school students ask to spend their afternoons and weekends in my laboratory, I am amazed: I didn't develop that kind…

— Harold E. Varmus

As an undergraduate at Amherst College, I was devoted to Dickensian novels and antiestablishment journalism while marginally fulfilling premedical requirements.

— Harold E. Varmus

There are three great themes in science in the twentieth century : the atom, the computer, and the gene.

— Harold E. Varmus

In preparation for a career in academic medicine, I worked as a medical house officer at Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital from 1966 to 1968…

— Harold E. Varmus

Anyone graduating from medical school in 1966 had first to fulfill military service before launching a career. Fiercely opposed to the Vietnam…

— Harold E. Varmus

Just after graduation in 1966, like many of my contemporaries, I applied for research training at the National Institutes of Health. Perhaps…

— Harold E. Varmus

Following graduation from Amherst, a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship enabled me to test the depth of my interest in literary scholarship by beginning…

— Harold E. Varmus

The public schools I attended were dominated by athletics and rarely inspiring intellectually, but I enjoyed a small circle of interesting friends…

— Harold E. Varmus