Extracts

Cancer Center Director Named

Joe Simone

Joseph V. Simone, an internationally recognized leader in cancer care, research and education, has been named director of the University of Florida Shands Cancer Center and physician-in-chief of cancer services for Shands at UF, effective July 1.

Simone served as a consultant in the planning for the Shands at UF Cancer Hospital and the university’s overall cancer program in 2006 and 2007.

It’s Simone’s knowledge of UF, Shands and Tampa-based H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center and Research Institute — where he also served as an adviser — that makes him the ideal person to advance the partnership between the three entities announced in January.

A pediatric oncologist, Simone spent 25 years at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, where he helped develop treatments for childhood leukemia and lymphoma. In 1983, he was named director of St. Jude.

From 1992 to 1996, Simone served as physician-in-chief of the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, where he developed a cancer disease management system and a regional clinical cancer network. He left New York to become executive director of the University of Utah’s Huntsman Cancer Institute, where he served five years. He has served as an independent consultant to cancer programs for the past seven years.

Simone’s key goals include leading a redesign of UF and Shands clinical cancer services to better align them with the patient-centered programs offered by Moffitt. He will also work to integrate UF and Shands patient-care and research activities with Moffitt’s “Total Cancer Care” program and the renewal of its prestigious National Cancer Institute Comprehensive Cancer Center core grant.
Simone said he is enthusiastic about the challenge of finding synergy in this marriage of well-established cancer programs.

“This is a unique opportunity for three very strong institutions to join in the cancer enterprise,” Simone said. “That’s a chance you get very rarely in this field. So I’m looking forward to tackling this new opportunity and exploring all the ways it can benefit the people of Florida.”