Douglas R. Lowy


Douglas R. Lowy is the Acting Director of the U.S. National Cancer Institute and Chief of the Laboratory of Cellular Oncology within the Center for Cancer Research at NCI. Lowy previously served as Acting Director of NCI between April 2015-October 2017. On April 8, 2019, he again became Acting Director as Director Norman Sharpless transitioned to serve as the Acting Commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Lowy served as Deputy Director of the NCI since 2015, alongside former directors Harold E. Varmus and Sharpless. Lowy was co-recipient of the National Medal of Technology and Innovation in 2014 and the Lasker-DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award in 2017.

Biography

Lowy received his medical degree from the New York University School of Medicine, and trained in internal medicine at Stanford University and dermatology at Yale. He has directed a research laboratory at NCI since 1975, after receiving training as a Research Associate in the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. Lowy is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and of its Institute of Medicine. For his joint research with John T. Schiller on technology that enabled the development of preventive human papillomavirus vaccines, he and Schiller received the 2007 Samuel J. Heyman Service to America Medal, the 2011 Albert B. Sabin Gold Medal, the 2012 National Medal of Technology and Innovation, and the Lasker-DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award in 2017. He has also received the National Medal of Honor for Basic Research from the American Cancer Society.

Research activities

Lowy's HPV research, conducted in collaboration with John T. Schiller, has characterized the HPV oncoproteins E6 and E7.

Awards