arold Varmus, M.D., the co-recipient of the 1989 Nobel Prize for physiology or medicine, former director of the National Institutes of Health, and current president and chief executive officer of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City, visited post-graduate students on the medical campus in May to talk about their research, the politics and financing of research, and what may happen to funding in the future.

Varmus was in town to receive an honorary degree from the University’s College of Arts and Sciences.

A relative newcomer to “science politics,” Varmus now serves on the Joint Steering Committee for Public Policy, which works with Congress to advocate for better policies as well as better funding for science. He’s going to have to push hard for more money, because, as Varmus noted, “funding for postdocs is going to be in trouble because the treasury has been depleted.”

“There’s not enough money for the NIH industry to grow,” Varmus said.