Trump administration to appoint Dana-Farber oncologist to run National Cancer Institute
By Adam Cancryn, CNN
(CNN) — The Trump administration is expected to name cancer researcher Dr. Anthony Letai as the new head of its National Cancer Institute, two people familiar with the matter told CNN.
The expected appointment, reported first by CNN, would put Letai at the helm of a sprawling operation within the National Institutes of Health that manages billions of dollars of federal grants and research programs focused on the causes, prevention, diagnosis and treatment of cancer.
Letai is a medical oncologist at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and a professor at Harvard Medical School, where his research has focused primarily on leukemia. He is also the current president of the Society for Functional Precision Medicine.
The Trump administration is slated to announce Letai’s appointment to run NCI as early as Monday, the people familiar with the matter said.
A spokesperson for the US Department of Health and Human Services declined to comment.
Letai’s selection comes as the administration has faced growing scrutiny over its plans for cancer research funding and the NIH more broadly. The institute has been without a permanent leader since President Donald Trump’s inauguration, when previous director Dr. W. Kimryn Rathmell resigned.
Trump officials soon afterward sought to cap certain costs tied to federal research grants, a move that prompted a wave of criticism from universities that warned it would decimate their ability to conduct critical laboratory work. The administration also canceled a raft of cancer-related research grants as part of its government-wide bid to slash spending.
The White House has floated a further downsizing and reorganization of the NIH as part of its latest budget proposal, including cutting NCI’s budget by more than a third.
Letai emerged in recent months as the top choice to run the institute amid that upheaval, following officials’ consideration of a range of other candidates, one of the people familiar with the matter said.
Among those discussed were Yale School of Public Health professor Dr. Harvey Risch, who gained prominence during the Covid-19 pandemic for his outspoken support of the controversial antimalarial drug hydroxychloroquine. Dr. Wafik El-Deiry, a cancer researcher who runs Brown University’s cancer center, and NYU Langone Health pancreatic cancer specialist Dr. Manuel Hidalgo were also among those considered.
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