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| Michael R. Green, MD, PhD, has been appointed director of the UMass Medical School Cancer Center. |
Michael R. Green, MD, PhD, has been appointed director of the UMass Medical School Cancer Center, Terence R. Flotte, MD, the Celia and Isaac Haidak Professor of Medical Education, executive deputy chancellor, provost and dean of the School of Medicine, has announced.
“This appointment is in alignment with the recently restructured and strengthened Department of Molecular, Cell & Cancer Biology, where so much of our strength in cancer research can be found. Thus, our cancer programs will benefit from this focus and his leadership,” Dr. Flotte said.
Dr. Green, UMass Medical School’s newest member of the National Academy of Sciences, is a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator; the Lambi and Sarah Adams Chair in Genetic Research; and chair and professor of molecular, cell & cancer biology.
Green will have comprehensive oversight of all cancer programs, including basic and clinical research at UMMS, the Cancer Research Office and the Tissue and Tumor Bank.
“Our strategic plan includes a significant goal for cancer programs at our academic health sciences center, specifically that, ‘We will provide a high value ecosystem that maximizes opportunities and optimizes outcomes for our patients who seek prevention, treatments and cures for cancer; our trainees who seek to become experts in all aspects of cancer; and our researchers who seek new knowledge for the prevention, treatment and cure of cancer,’” said Flotte.
“This is a challenging aspiration, one that will be achieved only if we work effectively and collaboratively together across disciplines. Dr. Green is ideally suited to lead this endeavor; his years of leadership in his own laboratory, as director of the Program in Gene Function and Expression, and now as chair of molecular, cell & cancer biology have superbly demonstrated his talent and his vision.”
Cancer programs at UMass Medical School include a broad array of clinicians, basic scientists, researchers in areas like health outcomes and epidemiology, experts in trial design, cancer prevention, imaging—hundreds of professionals who have a common goal of alleviating the suffering caused by cancer and identifying new approaches to treatment, control, prevention and cause, according to Flotte.
“Under Dr. Green’s leadership, we will provide them with a thoughtfully conceived umbrella under which to do their important work, supported by an academic health sciences center dedicated to achieving this comprehensive goal,” he said.
Flotte went on to especially acknowledge and thank Giles Whalen, MD, “who has worked with exceptional success as interim director to bring together clinicians and clinical investigators dedicated to the mission of state-of-the-art cancer care; Dr. Whalen will continue in his leadership role in the UMass Cancer Avatar Institute, which is enabling development of animal models of many human cancers; and, in his role as chief of the Division of Surgical Oncology, will assist Dr. Green in coordinating the clinical aspects of cancer research.”
