At a meeting on June 2 on Oʻahu, the University of Hawaiʻi Board of Regents approved Randall F. Holcombe as UH Cancer Center director. Holcombe will officially start on Monday, October 3, 2016. He is already hard at work and focusing on the renewal of the P30 Cancer Center support grant and the center’s buisness plan.
Holcombe has more than 25 years in academic medicine, serving in progressive leadership roles. He currently serves as the chief medical officer for cancer for the Mount Sinai Health System, deputy director for the National Cancer Institute (NCI)‐designated Tisch Cancer Institute and director of the ambulatory oncology services at Mount Sinai Hospital. Holcombe is also a researcher, with more than 100 peer-reviewed publications, a clinician and an effective administrative leader.
“We are happy to be able to present such an outstanding candidate to the Board of Regents, a candidate who sees the great value of the UH Cancer Center in Hawaiʻi and wants to continue its mission of reducing the burden of cancer in our communities through research, education and improved patient care,” said Michael Bruno, the UH Mānoa vice chancellor for research.
“He can be instrumental in our efforts to keep the UH Cancer Center NCI-designated, a distinction that only 69 out of more than 1,600 cancer centers in the U.S. have,” said Jerris Hedges, dean of the UH John A. Burns School of Medicine and interim director of the UH Cancer Center.
About Randall Holcombe
Prior to joining Mount Sinai, Holcombe served as the division chief of hematology/oncology for 13 years at the University of California, Irvine during which time he also held many additional leadership positions within the School of Medicine and university, including associate vice chancellor for research, director of the Office of Clinical Research and Trials, and associate director of the NCI‐designated Chao Family Comprehensive Cancer Center. He currently serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Oncology Practice and is chair of the Physicians’ Clinical Leadership Initiative for the Association of American Cancer Institutes.
Holcombe graduated from Duke University magna cum laude and was a Phi Beta Kappa Society member. He then graduated from the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey‐NJ Medical School. He then did his residency training in internal medicine and fellowship training in both hematology and medical oncology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts. He received post‐doctoral research training in the laboratory of Jonathan Seidman at Harvard Medical School Department of Genetics and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
June 2, 2016—Editor’s note: This article was updated after Holcombe’s appointment was approved at the UH Board of Regents meeting.
June 30, 2016—Editor’s note: This article was updated to reflect Holcombe’s start date.
