Health
New head of NCI is named
NEWS IN BRIEF — Posted Sept. 4, 2006
John E. Niederhuber, MD, has been tapped by President Bush to be the 13th director of the National Cancer Institute. He will replace Andrew C. von Eschenbach, MD, who was nominated to head the Food and Drug Administration.
Dr. Niederhuber had been acting director of NCI since June. He also will continue as head of the Laboratory of Tumor and Stem Cell Biology, where he studies adult tissue stem cells as the cell of origin for cancer.
Other posts he held at the institute include chief operating officer and deputy director of translational and clinical sciences. He had been chair of the National Cancer Advisory Board until becoming acting director of the institute.
Before going to NCI, he was a professor of surgery and oncology at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine in Madison and directed the university's Comprehensive Cancer Center, one of NCI's 61 such centers.
Created in 1937, the NCI is the oldest of the 27 institutes and centers that comprise the National Institutes of Health.
Note: This item originally appeared at http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2006/09/04/hlbf0904.htm.