Harold Varmus

Harold Varmus was born in New York in 1939, He and Dr. J. Michael Bishop were awarded the 1989 Nobel Prize for their discovery that normal cell genes can malfunction and so trigger the development of cancer. These investigators had been working on ways in which some chicken viruses could cause cancer. They found that certain genes in the viruse called oncogenes, were responsible for the uncontrolled cancer cell growth. Subsequently, they found that these viral oncogenes were actually modified forms of genes found in normal cells. This was a key finding in the fight against cancers as well a a mjor contriubtion to our understanding of cell biology

See Kuby 3rd ed page 575

Tizard Immunology 4th ed p 75