Biden picks cancer surgeon Monica Bertagnolli to be next NIH director

CNN
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President Joe Biden will nominate Dr. Monica Bertagnolli, who currently heads the National Cancer Institute, to be the next director of the National Institutes of Health, the White House announced Monday.

Biden called Bertagnolli “a world-class medical scientist whose vision and leadership will ensure that the NIH will continue to be a driver of innovation to improve the health of the American people,” in a statement released Monday.

If confirmed by the Senate, Bertagnolli would fill a vacant position for more than a year. She would head the country’s medical research agency, overseeing 27 institutes and research centers focusing on different areas of medical research, such as cancer, the human genome, as well as allergies and infectious diseases.

The appointment to head the NIH marks a rapid rise within the Biden administration for Bertagnolli. She became the first woman to lead the NCI when she joined the institute last October. And just two months into her role as head of the NCI, which is overseen by the NIH, she announced last December that she was diagnostic with early breast cancer. She said NPR in February that she was still undergoing treatment.

If confirmed, Bertagnolli would succeed Dr. Lawrence Tabak, who has served as acting NIH director since his predecessor Francis Collins retired in late 2021. Collins led the NIH for 12 years.

Biden’s statement also nods to Bertagnolli’s involvement in advancing the president’s Cancer Moonshot initiative, which aims to halve the cancer death rate by 2047.

It’s an initiative close to the president’s heart, spurred on after the death of his son, Beau Biden, who died in 2015 at age 46 after battling brain cancer.

Bertagnolli, Biden wrote, “brought together partners and resources from different sectors to launch groundbreaking efforts in cancer prevention and early detection, a national childhood cancer navigation program, and additional programs to bring clinical trials to more Americans.”

Prior to joining the NCI, Bertagnolli was formerly the Richard E. Wilson Professor of Surgery in Surgical Oncology at Harvard Medical School, a surgeon at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and a member of the Gastrointestinal Cancer and Sarcoma Treatment Centers. at Dana-Farber. Cancer Institute.