Timeline
August 5, 1937: President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed into law the National Cancer Institute Act (Pub. Law 75-244; 50 Stat. 559), which established the National Cancer Institute, as a division of the Public Health Service.
1940: The first issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute was published.
1944: The United States Congress made the NCI an operating division of the National Institutes of Health by its passage of the Public Health Service Act. Congress later amended the Public Health Service Act with the National Cancer Act of 1971, to broaden the scope and responsibilities of the NCI "in order more effectively to carry out the national effort against cancer."
1955: NCI established the Clinical Trials Cooperative Group Program, which included several research networks that conducted cancer clinical research primarily under the sponsorship of NCI.
1957: The first cancer, choriocarcinoma, was cured with chemotherapy at NCI.
1960: NCI began funding government-supported cancer centers.
1971: President Richard Nixon converted the U.S. Army's former biological warfare facilities at Fort Detrick, Maryland, to house research activities on the causes, treatment, and prevention of cancer.
1971: The National Cancer Act of 1971 declares "war on cancer", establishes the National Cancer Advisory Board, and allots additional funding for cancer research.
1975: The Frederick National Laboratory for Cancer Research opened in Frederick, Maryland, as a Federally Funded Research and Development Center
1993: The NIH Revitalization Act of 1993 encourages NCI to expand its efforts in prostate cancer, breast and other cancers which primarily or solely affected women, and authorized increased appropriations.
1998: Establishes the Office of Cancer Complementary and Alternative Medicine to study pseudoscientific alternative medicine treatments for cancer
2009: The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 provided US$10 billion in additional funding for the NIH; the NCI received US$1.3 billion from that amount.
2016: The 21st Century Cures Act increased funding for biomedical research. The "Cancer Moonshot" program promised additional support for cancer research.
On October 17, 2017, Norman Sharpless was sworn in as the 15th director of the National Cancer Institute. In April 2019, Sharpless left NCI to serve as the acting Commissioner of Food and Drugs. He returned to the institute in November 2019 as director.
