225 years of Tar Heels: Ned Sharpless
Carolina alumnus Ned Sharpless served as director of the National Cancer Institute for nearly two years before taking on the role of acting commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration.
Editor’s note: In honor of the University’s 225th anniversary, we will be sharing profiles throughout the academic year of some of the many Tar Heels who have left their heelprint on the campus, their communities, the state, the nation and the world.
Two-time Carolina graduate Dr. Ned Sharpless was serving as director of the Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center when his former boss and postdoctoral advisor Ron DePinho called him to persuade him to take a new job.
DePinho had nominated Sharpless to become the director of the National Cancer Institute. “I sort of stopped him midsentence and said, ‘Wait, Ron, you had me at NCI director,’” Sharpless told Science Magazine for a December 2017 article.
On Oct. 17, 2017, Sharpless was sworn in as director of the National Cancer Institute, whose mission is to lead, conduct and support cancer research across the country to advance scientific knowledge and to help people live longer, healthier lives.
“This is an exciting moment for cancer research, as new discoveries and technological improvements are accelerating our progress against cancer, an ancient and unrelenting foe,” Sharpless said at the time.
In March, it was announced that Sharpless will serve as acting commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration.
A native of Greensboro, Sharpless was a Morehead-Cain Scholar at Carolina. He earned an undergraduate degree in mathematics and his medical degree from the UNC School of Medicine.
He completed his residency training at Massachusetts General Hospital and his clinical and research fellowship in hematology and oncology at Dana-Farber/Partners Cancer Care in Boston. He returned to Chapel Hill as a faculty member at Lineberger in 2002.
Sharpless became the Lineberger director in 2014. He was also a practicing oncologist at the N.C. Cancer Hospital, where he specialized in the care of patients with hematologic cancers.
