Dr. Douglas R. Lowy is the Chief of the Laboratory of Cellular Oncology in the Center for Cancer Research (CCR) at the National Cancer Institute (NCI), National Institutes of Health (NIH), Bethesda, Maryland. Dr. Lowy is also a Deputy Director of the CCR. He received his M.D. from New York University School of Medicine in 1968, and trained in internal medicine at Stanford University and dermatology at Yale University. Between 1970 and 1973, he was a research associate in the Laboratory of Viral Diseases, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, NIH. He returned to NIH in 1975, to start his laboratory at NCI.

Dr. Lowy’s fields of research include papillomaviruses and the regulation of normal and neoplastic growth. In the 1980s, he studied the genetic organization of papillomaviruses and identified the three viral oncogenes of papillomaviruses, E5, E6, and E7. More recently, he has worked on papillomavirus vaccines and the papillomavirus life cycle. His laboratory has been involved in the initial development, characterization, and clinical testing of virus-like particle based vaccines. He is listed by the Institute for Scientific Information as one of the most highly cited authors in microbiology.