Harold Eliot Varmus (born December 18, 1939) is an American scientist. He won a Nobel Prize. He is the 14th and current Director of the National Cancer Institute. He was appointed to that post he was appointed to by President Barack Obama.
Varmus was a co-recipient, with J. Michael Bishop, of the 1989 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their discovery of the origin of retroviral oncogenes. Varmus described the work in his Nobel lecture.
He also serves as one of three co-Chairs of the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.