TCH’s cancer program under new charge
Previous director left to lead an outreach for children in Africa
The longtime head of Texas Children’s Hospital’s cancer program has stepped down to focus on its new outreach for pediatric cancer in Africa and been succeeded by his second in command.
Texas Children’s announced that Dr. Susan Blaney was promoted from deputy director to director of its Cancer and Hematology Centers on July 1, after Dr. David Poplack was named associate director of Global HOPE (Hematology-Oncology Pediatric Excellence), the hospital’s 1 ½-year-old initiative in Botswana, Malawi and Uganda. Poplack had been director of the cancer center since 1993. “I am extremely excited about this new role and opportunity,” Blaney, who joined Texas Children’s in 1995, said in a statement. “I can’t think of a better program or place to be.”
Blaney served the past 10 years as deputy director for TCH’s Cancer and Hematology Center and as executive vice chair of pediatrics at Baylor College of Medicine.
Poplack said he could “think
of no one in the country more qualified and capable of succeeding me and continuing our relentless pursuit of finding a cure for all children with cancer and blood disorders.”
Under Poplack’s leadership, Texas Children’s Cancer and Hematology Centers have grown exponentially — from seven faculty members, 42 employees, 4,000 square feet of lab space and less than $1 million in annual grant funding in 1993 to nearly 200 faculty members, 1,000 employees, 100,000 square feet of lab space and $50 million in annual external grant funding today.
Poplack has recently devoted much of his attention to Global HOPE, an outgrowth of the Texas Children’s and Baylor’s PeaceCorps-like AIDS care in the developing world. In March, Global HOPE hit its first milestone — treating more than 1,000 African pediatric cancer patients.
Blaney is vice chair of the Children’s Oncology Group, an international clinical trial cooperative group of more than 200 National Cancer Institute-supported children’s cancer programs across North America.