I was born in the shadow of World War II, on December 18, 1939, on the South Shore of Long Island, a product of the early -wentieth-century emigration of Eastern European Jewry to New York City and its environs. — Harold E. Varmus Copy Share Image
As an undergraduate at Amherst College, I was devoted to Dickensian novels and antiestablishment journalism while marginally fulfilling premedical requirements. — Harold E. Varmus Copy Share Image
A cancer is not simply a lung cancer. It doesn't simply have a certain kind of appearance under the microscope or a certain behavior,… — Harold E. Varmus Copy Share Image
Every cancer looks different. Every cancer has similarities to other cancers. And we're trying to milk those differences and similarities to do a better… — Harold E. Varmus Copy Share Image
Tobacco, UV rays, viruses, heredity, and age are the main causes of cancer. — Harold E. Varmus Copy Share Image
I had learned that science is a rewarding, active process of discovery, not the passive absorption of what others had discovered. — Harold E. Varmus Copy Share Image
Following graduation from Amherst, a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship enabled me to test the depth of my interest in literary scholarship by beginning graduate studies… — Harold E. Varmus Copy Share Image
From some dilatory reading in the early 1960s, I knew enough about viruses and their association with tumors in animals to understand that they… — Harold E. Varmus Copy Share Image
I keep encouraging the pharmaceutical companies to put more money into R&D. — Harold E. Varmus Copy Share Image
Science can improve lives in ways that are elegant in design and moving in practice. — Harold E. Varmus Copy Share Image
I begin with the premise that behavior is an incredibly important element in medicine. Peoples habits, their willingness to quit smoking, their willingness to… — Harold E. Varmus Copy Share Image
Just after graduation in 1966, like many of my contemporaries, I applied for research training at the National Institutes of Health. Perhaps because his… — Harold E. Varmus Copy Share Image
The public schools I attended were dominated by athletics and rarely inspiring intellectually, but I enjoyed a small circle of interesting friends despite my… — Harold E. Varmus Copy Share Image
In preparation for a career in academic medicine, I worked as a medical house officer at Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital from 1966 to 1968 and then… — Harold E. Varmus Copy Share Image
Our biggest single theme is trying to make the NIH work better with the same amount of money. — Harold E. Varmus Copy Share Image
