- Caputo led HHS public affairs during the 2020 COVID-19 response
- He is a head-and-neck cancer survivor treated at Roswell Park
- The three-member panel reports directly to the president
Michael Caputo, who directed public affairs at the Department of Health and Human Services during the 2020 COVID-19 response, has been appointed to the President’s Cancer Panel.
HHS announced the appointment Sunday. Caputo takes the seat vacated by Mitchel Berger, director of the UCSF Brain Tumor Center, who recently rotated off, The Cancer Letter reported. HHS Secretary Robert Kennedy said Caputo would help advance a national cancer strategy built on prevention, innovation, transparency and results.
Federal health agencies are weighing modernization and research priorities as they head into the new year. The Potomac Officers Club will host the 2026 Healthcare Summit on Dec. 3 in Virginia, where leaders from HHS, the Defense Health Agency, the Veterans Health Administration and other agencies will discuss technology, AI and modernization. Save your seat now.
What Does the President’s Cancer Panel Do?
The National Cancer Act of 1971 created the panel to monitor the National Cancer Program and report to the president on its progress. Under its charter, three presidentially appointed members submit periodic progress reports and an annual evaluation to the president, the HHS secretary and Congress. They are directed to raise any delays or blockages in the program with the president immediately.
Members serve three-year terms as special government employees. The charter requires at least two of the three to be distinguished scientists or physicians. The panel meets at least four times a year. Its current charter was filed May 31.
Caputo joins Harvey Risch, the panel’s chair and a professor emeritus of epidemiology at Yale, and Carol Brown, chief health equity officer at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.
Who Is Michael Caputo?
Caputo served as assistant secretary for public affairs at HHS from April 2020 to January 2021, directing the department’s communications during the pandemic. HHS said he helped establish and guide Operation Warp Speed.
He was a senior adviser for communications and policy to President Donald Trump’s 2016 and 2024 presidential campaigns, and in 2025 served as senior counselor to the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia. His earlier career included roles with the Jack Kemp presidential campaign, the Bush-Quayle 1992 campaign and the House Radio and Television Correspondents Gallery. He spent six years in Moscow running a public affairs firm. Caputo is an Army veteran who served with the 25th Infantry Division.
Why Did Caputo Seek the Appointment?
Caputo was diagnosed with squamous head-and-neck cancer in September 2020 while serving at HHS and was treated at Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center in Buffalo over roughly four months. He told The Cancer Letter he has had no evidence of disease since January 2021 but continues to live with lasting effects of the treatment, including tinnitus and increased vulnerability to infection.
He said he asked the White House to let him work on cancer policy after his first assignment in the current administration ended, and that he initially sought a seat on the National Cancer Advisory Board.
On survivorship, he told the publication there is “a clear gap in the National Cancer Program” between curing the disease and the quality-of-life harm left behind, and said he wants the panel to press that issue. He also said the White House is seeking input on the microbiome, a subject the panel has been examining.
What Outside Interests Does Caputo Hold?
Caputo is co-founder and executive vice president of Ave Maria Biotech, which makes an airborne pathogen detection device and works with Army DEVCOM under a cooperative research and development agreement.
He advises the law firm Boies Schiller Flexner on international public affairs and counsels City of Hope Cancer Institute on work tied to the administration’s Make America Healthy Again initiative. He organized a City of Hope workshop on the microbiome in cancer in June, which HHS Secretary Kennedy attended, according to The Cancer Letter.
