President Joe Biden has expressed his intent to nominate W. Kimryn Rathmell, a physician-scientist oncologist and educator, to lead the National Cancer Institute.
“The National Cancer Institute is central to the success of the Cancer Moonshot and Dr. Rathmell will lead the agency towards new ways to prevent, detect and treat cancer and to ensure we reach more Americans with the tools we have to save and extend lives,” Biden said in a statement published Friday.
Rathmell currently serves as chair of the Department of Medicine and physician-in-chief at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee. She previously held leadership positions as a member of the National Institutes of Health Cancer Genome Atlas program, serves on NCI’s Board of Scientific Advisors and has worked on the Department of Defense’s Kidney Cancer Research Program.
Rathmell, who also serves as Hugh Jackson Morgan Chair in Medicine at VUMC, is a member of the Association of American Physicians and a fellow of the American Society of Clinical Oncology.
Her research focuses on the molecular, cell and genetic biology of kidney cancer.
Xavier Becerra, secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, said Rathmell’s decades of experience will help drive NCI’s innovation and research to improve care for cancer patients.
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