Renowned colon cancer expert Dr. Randall Holcombe, who’s been tapped to lead the University of Hawaii Cancer Center, isn’t intimidated by the weighty challenges facing the cash-strapped research center. He wants to tackle them head-on — even before his official start date in three months — to allow the center to focus on its lifesaving work.

“There are challenges; but there are challenges at every center. I’m really looking forward to tackling the challenges that do exist there so that the opportunities can be realized to the fullest extent possible,” Holcombe, 59, said in a phone interview from his offices in New York, where he is chief medical officer for cancer for Mount Sinai Health System, one of several titles he holds within the seven-hospital network.

“I’ll be tackling things even before October,” he said, adding that he’ll be visiting the center several times before his Oct. 3 start date and will be participating weekly in Skype meetings with UH.

Holcombe is joining UH at a crucial time as the university and lawmakers continue to debate the future of the center, which has been overspending revenues by $7 million to $10 million a year and spending its reserve funds to stay afloat. The university initiated a search for a director in November, exactly a year after the center’s controversial former director, Dr. Michele Carbone, resigned and Dr. Jerris Hedges, dean of the John A. Burns School of Medicine, was named interim director.

Holcombe was among four finalists announced in March for the job. The university’s board of regents approved his appointment last month, with a $410,004 annual salary. Holcombe, who formally accepted the position this week, said he and his wife, Connie, will be relocating to Oahu after he shifts his patients to other doctors and hands off other responsibilities.

With expertise in hematology and oncology, Holcombe is considered a leading authority on colon cancer and other gastrointestinal malignancies, with experience ranging from basic science and translational research to clinical trials and patient care.

At Mount Sinai since 2010

The New Jersey native developed an early interest in science in high school, working during the summers at a local marine biology research laboratory, where researchers were studying high blood pressure in dogfish sharks. He ended up double-majoring in chemistry and zoology at Duke University and went on to earn his medical degree from the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey in 1983. He became interested in oncology during his internal medicine residency at Harvard Medical School’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston.

“I really liked taking care of cancer patients. I liked the science that was emerging in new treatments that were becoming available,” Holcombe said. He’s since served as principal investigator on more than 140 oncology clinical trials — research studies that explore whether a medical strategy or treatment is safe and effective for humans.

He joined Mount Sinai in 2010 and took on several roles. In addition to overseeing cancer care for Mount Sinai’s seven hospital campuses, Holcombe also serves as deputy director for the Tisch Cancer Institute at Mount Sinai, medical director of the Derald H. Ruttenberg Treatment Center and director of medical oncology at The Mount Sinai Hospital. He also teaches at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.

“I have a busy day job,” Holcombe acknowledged with a laugh. Even so, he recently earned a master’s degree in business administration by squeezing in evening classes at Baruch College in New York.

The UH Cancer Center, a research unit of the flagship Manoa campus, has a mission of reducing the burden of cancer through research, education and patient care. More than 6,000 Hawaii residents are diagnosed with an invasive form of cancer every year, and some 2,000 die from the disease annually, making it the second leading cause of death in the state after heart disease.

As the only cancer center in the Pacific region — and one that carries a prestigious federal National Cancer Institute designation — the UH Cancer Center is in the unique position of tailoring its research and care to the needs of Hawaii’s population, Holcombe said.

“I think there is tremendous opportunity to really impact the cancer problem for the population of the islands. I think that’s what really attracts me to the position,” he said. “I think that there is a really strong foundation of research, especially related to population sciences and also cancer prevention as well as the research related to natural products development for possible therapeutics for patients with cancer. I think that a tremendous amount of benefit can be brought forward.”

NCI renewal top priority

UH’s cancer center is among 69 out of 1,600 nationwide that carry the National Cancer Institute, or NCI, designation — a distinction that recognizes scientific leadership, resources and a broad range and depth of research. The designation gives UH an edge when competing for federal funds and recruiting researchers.

UH first secured the designation in 1996, and received its latest five-year award in 2012. After being granted an extension, UH’s application for what’s known as a P30 Cancer Center Support Grant for NCI-designated centers is due next year. The recruitment of a highly qualified, permanent director is seen by many as critical to hanging onto the federal designation.

Holcombe, who secured an initial NCI designation last year for the Tisch Cancer Institute, says renewal of Hawaii’s designation — and the supporting grant that comes with it — will be his biggest priority in the short term.

“I think that is absolutely critical to the mission of the University of Hawaii Cancer Center,” Holcombe said. “That will consume a lot of my time over the next year, to make sure that we put the best application forward to make sure that we can maintain that.”

He said securing Mount Sinai’s designation was a challenge because there were already four other NCI-designated cancer centers in New York.

“So we had a fairly high bar, but I think we put together a very good application, obviously good enough to get that designation,” he said. “Achieving NCI designation is always a high bar; there will be a high bar for the University of Hawaii Cancer Center as well. But I’m confident that we can be successful.”

Besides the federal grant, some of his other goals include:

>> Expanding the portfolio of clinical trials available to cancer patients in Hawaii and establishing a program for early-phase trials.

>> Recruiting faculty to broaden the center’s research base in cancer biology and cancer prevention.

>> Establishing research partnerships across the Pacific.

Philanthropic support key

A substantial philanthropic donation from longtime university supporters is contingent in part on achieving the NCI renewal.

At last month’s regents meeting, where Holcombe’s appointment was discussed, Virginia Weinman testified that she and her husband, Barry, want to donate $20 million to the cancer center, “but only on the condition that the NCI designation is not in jeopardy, which it will be if we don’t have a new director appointed immediately.”

Weinman, who sits on the Friends of the UH Cancer Center board, did not respond to a request for comment about Holcombe’s hiring and the status of the gift.

Holcombe said the potential donation, which a UH spokesman said is still in play, would be “a tremendous asset.”

“I think that philanthropic support in general will be important in the short term and also in the long term for the center,” he said. “Honestly, philanthropic support is absolutely critical to the mission of all cancer research centers, because it’s possible to maintain research programs just through extramural grant funding, but it’s exceedingly difficult to initiate new programs and develop new areas of research without philanthropic support. … That’s one of the responsibilities of a cancer center director: to be able to share the message of what’s going within the center and share the excitement that that can bring and to enable philanthropic support.”

PROFILE

Dr. Randall F. Holcombe

AGE

59

EDUCATION

>> Undergraduate: Duke University, chemistry and zoology

>> Medical school: University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, which is now Rutgers New Jersey Medical School

>> MBA: Zicklin School of Business at Baruch College

CAREER

>> Mount Sinai Health System: Chief medical officer for cancer; deputy director, Tisch Cancer Institute; medical director, Derald H. Ruttenberg Treatment Center; director of medical oncology at Mount Sinai Hospital; professor of medicine at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai

>> University of California-Irvine Medical Center: Chief of hematology/oncology division; director of Office of Clinical Research and Trials; associate vice chancellor for research

>> Louisiana State University School of Medicine: Assistant professor of medicine