Raymond DuBois Jr., M.D., Ph.D., will leave his position as director of the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center later this year to return to his native Texas as provost and executive vice president of academic affairs at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.
Vanderbilt-Ingram will conduct a national search and expects to have a successor named by summer, officials said.
“There is no greater confirmation of the quality of your team than when a peer institution that you greatly respect and admire recruits your faculty, so Ray‘s decision is met with a mixture of pride and sadness,” said Harry Jacobson, M.D., vice chancellor for Health Affairs.
“Ray has done an outstanding job since taking the reins of the cancer center in 2005. Under his leadership, the center has continued to grow in both strength and stature, ranking among the top 10 cancer centers in the country in competitive research funding.
During his tenure, we have seen the award of significant research grants, and we have seen more cancer patients turn to us for their care, with more than 3,800 new cancer patients in 2005, an 11 percent increase over the year before.
“It should not be surprising that M.D. Anderson‘s leadership saw what we saw in Ray: a capable leader with stellar scientific credentials, skills and reputation. M.D. Anderson is the largest cancer center in the country, with a $2.5 billion budget, 16,000 employees and more than 1,200 faculty members. We congratulate Ray on this exciting professional and personal opportunity to return to Texas, where he has both academic roots and family.”
At M. D. Anderson, DuBois will have responsibility and authority for: the research agenda, programs, finances and space; educational programs at all levels; and all activities related to the appointment, resourcing and mentoring of faculty.
“This is really bittersweet for me,” DuBois said. “I have been fortunate to work with a wonderful team of faculty and staff here at Vanderbilt since 1991, and am very proud of the accomplishments we‘ve made in the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center. I know that this cancer center is poised for even greater success, and I am proud of the role I was able to play in that. However, this opportunity, especially in my home state near my mother and sister, was one that I couldn‘t decline.”
A native of Runge, Texas, DuBois received his doctorate in biochemistry at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School and his medical degree from the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio. After completing post-graduate training at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, DuBois accepted a faculty position at Vanderbilt in the Division of Gastroenterology in 1991, with a joint appointment in Cell Biology.
Five years later, he was named chief of Gastroenterology and held the Mina Cobb Wallace Chair for Cancer Prevention. He also served as Vanderbilt-Ingram‘s associate director for Cancer Prevention and Control before succeeding founding director Harold Moses, M.D., as center director in 2005.
Orrin Ingram, chair of Vanderbilt-Ingram‘s Board of Overseers and member of the Vanderbilt Medical Center‘s Board, expressed the boards‘ congratulations as well as confidence in the center‘s senior leadership team.
“The Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer is a vital priority for the Medical Center and, as Tennessee‘s only Comprehensive Cancer Center, a critical resource for the Southeast,” Ingram said. “We will move quickly to identify the very best person to lead this talented team of scientists and clinicians so that the center‘s important work in cancer research, treatment, prevention and outreach doesn‘t miss a beat.”