THE WHITE HOUSE

                     Office of the Press Secretary
                            (Kiev, Ukraine)
________________________________________________________________________
For Immediate Release                                       June 5, 2000

PRESIDENT CLINTON NAMES DR. PHILLIP A. SHARP AS CHAIR OF THE NATIONAL

CANCER ADVISORY BOARD

The President today announced his intent to appoint Dr. Phillip A. Sharp to serve as Chair of the National Cancer Advisory Board.

Dr. Phillip A. Sharp, of Newton, Massachusetts, has served as a member of the National Cancer Advisory Board since 1996. He joined the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's (MIT) faculty in 1974, and succeeded Dr. Salvador E. Luria as Director of the Center for Cancer Research in 1985. From 1991-1999, Dr. Sharp served as Head of the Department of Biology at MIT where he is currently an Institute Professor. Dr. Sharp's research centers on the molecular biology of tumor viruses, the mechanisms of RNA splicing, and the mechanism of activity of Tat and Rev of HIV-1. Dr. Sharp's work in 1977, provided one of the first indications of "split genes" in the cells of mammals. His discovery that genes contain nonsense segments edited out by cells in the course of utilizing genetic information is important to understanding the genetic causes of cancer. In 1993, Dr. Sharp shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology of Medicine for his discovery.

Dr. Sharp received a B.A. degree from Union College in Kentucky and a Ph.D. from the University of Illinois-Urbana. He is the recipient of numerous awards including the Eli Lilly Award in Molecular Biology; the Albert Lasker Medical Research Award; the General Motors Research Foundation Alfred P. Sloan, Jr. Prize for Cancer Research, and MIT'S James R. Killian, Jr. Faculty Achievement Award among others.

The members of the National Cancer Advisory Board provide advice to the President, the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, and the Director of the National Cancer Institute, with respect to the activities and policies carried out by the Institute. The Board consists of eighteen members appointed by the President for six-year terms.

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