Head of UAMS cancer center hired

FAYETTEVILLE — Dr. Michael Birrer, a gynecologic cancer researcher with experience leading a comprehensive cancer center, will be the next director of the Winthrop P. Rockefeller Cancer Institute.

“He’s internationally recognized [and] wrote a textbook on how to treat ovarian cancer,” Dr. Cam Patterson, chancellor for the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, told the university’s trustees Thursday in announcing the hire.

UAMS is seeking to gain status as a National Cancer Institute-designated cancer center. State legislators this year approved a law that allocates funds raised mostly from tobacco and e-cigarette taxes to help with the goal.

Gov. Asa Hutchinson, in a statement earlier this year, called the designation “important for UAMS and for Arkansans.” There are 71 such National Cancer Institute-designated centers in 36 states and the District of Columbia, according to the institute.

Birrer will arrive in Little Rock with experience leading a National Cancer Institute-designated cancer center.

In 2017, the University of Alabama at Birmingham hired Birrer to lead its cancer center. He was director when the center received a $30 million gift from the metals service center company O’Neal Industries. Birrer this April stepped down as director but stayed on at the university to pursue research, the Alabama university announced in May.

“He was our No. 1 candidate. The search committee worked diligently to convince him that UAMS was the place for him to land,” Patterson said. Birrer is expected to start in his new role before the end of the year, Patterson said.

Birrer’s career includes “decades” leading cancer research programs at Massachusetts General Hospital, Patterson said.