President Biden said Wednesday he intends to appoint Dr. Monica Bertagnolli, a prominent surgeon and Harvard Medical School professor, as the 16th director of the National Cancer Institute.
Dr. Bertagnolli will be the first woman to lead the institute and will be tasked with accelerating Mr. Biden’s signature cancer “moonshot” program — an effort to cut the U.S. cancer rate by at least 50% over the next 25 years.
The National Cancer Institute is part of the National Institutes of Health and coordinates efforts to prevent, diagnose and treat cancer.
Currently, Dr. Bertagnolli is a professor of surgery at Harvard and a surgeon at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.