John Niederhuber: Thinking Like a Director

Extract

When the announcement came on Aug. 15 that he would be appointed the 13th director of the National Cancer Institute, John Niederhuber , M.D. was not surprised. One could say he's been heading toward this moment from the earliest part of his career.

Niederhuber had become acting director of the Institute less than 3 months earlier, after Andrew C. von Eschenbach, M.D., departed for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. But he has been a visible part of the cancer establishment for decades. He was chair of the National Cancer Advisory Board, a comprehensive cancer center director, and a member of dozens of committees involved in NCI work, including the recent Committee to Restructure the National Cancer Clinical Trials Enterprise. For the past year, he's been a deputy director at NCI.

“I've been coming here to NCI for more years than I'd like to admit in one capacity or another,” says the 68-year-old surgeon. “I've known personally all the directors over the years—Vince DeVita, Sam Broder, Rick Klausner. I suppose at times I thought, ‘Gee, wouldn't that be a neat opportunity.’ But I didn't think about it seriously. I never expected the opportunity.”