Areas of Specialty:

• Drug Discovery

• Senescence

• Stem Cells

Norman (Ned) Sharpless, MD

Dr. Sharpless is a physician, scientist, entrepreneur, and former federal official, serving as Director of the National Cancer Institute from 2017 to 2022, and as Acting Commissioner of the US Food and Drug Administration in 2019. Prior to government, Dr. Sharpless was the Wellcome Distinguished Professor of Medicine and Director of the Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center at The University of North Carolina School of Medicine. He founded G1 Therapeutics, which developed COSELA, an FDA-approved medicine for patients with lung cancer and is on several for-profit and non-profit boards including Incyclix, Karius Inc., Nucleus Radiopharma, the Eshelman Institute for Innovation, the CEO Roundtable on Cancer, and the American Cancer Society. He is the co-Founder and Managing Director of Jupiter BioVentures, a $75M venture studio that incubates innovative biotech startups in oncology and other disease areas. He is the Professor of Cancer Policy and Innovation at The University of North Carolina School of Medicine and is a member of the American Association for Cancer Research Academy, the Association of American Physicians, the American Society for Clinical Investigation, and the National Academy of Medicine.