The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has named Norman E. “Ned” Sharpless, M.D., as the agency’s Acting Commissioner of Food and Drugs, which became effective on April 5, 2019.

Prior to this role, Sharpless was the director of the National Cancer Institute, a post he held since October 2017.

Before that, Sharpless served as the director of the University of North Carolina (UNC) Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center, a position he held since January 2014.

Sharpless was a Morehead Scholar at UNC at Chapel Hill and received his undergraduate degree in mathematics. He went on to pursue his medical degree from the UNC School of Medicine, graduating with honors and distinction in 1993. He then completed his internal medicine residency at the Massachusetts General Hospital and a hematology/oncology fellowship at Dana-Farber/Partners Cancer Care, both of Harvard Medical School in Boston.

After 2 years on the faculty at Harvard Medical School, he joined the faculty of the UNC School of Medicine in the Departments of Medicine and Genetics in 2002. He became the Wellcome Professor of Cancer Research at UNC in 2012.

Former FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb, M.D. has returned to the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) where he serves as a resident fellow in health policy studies. Here, Gottlieb will continue his work on improving public health through entrepreneurship and medical innovation and on expanding regulatory approaches to maintain patient and physician autonomy. Gottlieb first joined AEI in 2002.

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