Dr. Monica Bertagnolli is the 17th director of the National Institutes of Health, the first surgeon and the second woman to hold the position. She previously served as the director of the National Cancer Institute. Before that, she was a surgical oncologist at Harvard Medical School. Throughout her career, she has been at the forefront of the field of clinical oncology. Her laboratory focused on understanding the genetic drivers of gastrointestinal cancer development and the role of inflammation as a promoter of cancer growth. She has been a leader of clinical trials and trial networks and has championed collaborative initiatives to transform the data infrastructure for clinical research. In her short time as head of the NIH, she has worked to rebuild bridges between lawmakers, the public, and the NIH after the trauma of the COVID-19 pandemic. Dr. Bertagnolli also served as Director of the National Cancer Institute where she initiated and expanded clinical trials so more people could participate.
The daughter of Italian and French Basque immigrants, Dr. Bertagnolli grew up on a ranch in Wyoming. She received a B.S. in Engineering from Princeton, attended medical school at the University of Utah, trained in surgery at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and was a research fellow in tumor oncology at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.