LEBANON — Dr. Roy Herbst will become the new director of the Dartmouth Cancer Center, part of the Lebanon-based Dartmouth Health network.
Herbst, who will begin his role July 13, replaces Dr. Konstantin Dragnev, who was appointed interim director of the cancer center last October to replace Dr. Steven Leach, who is currently interim dean of Dartmouth College’s Geisel School of Medicine.
“With Dr. Herbst at the helm of our Cancer Center, we are poised to grow our reach and capabilities to greater heights than ever before, as our clinicians and researchers continue their mission toward a world without cancer,” Dr. Joanne M. Conroy, CEO and president of Dartmouth Health, said in a news release last week.
The Dartmouth Cancer Center has 14 locations in the Twin States. It is one of only three National Cancer Institute-designated comprehensive cancer centers in New England and the only center not located in a major urban hub. As such, Conroy described it as “one of our crown jewels at Dartmouth Health.”
In his current role as deputy director and chief of medical oncology and hematology at Yale Cancer Center and Smilow Cancer Hospital in New Haven, Conn., Herbst has been responsible for leading clinical and research programs and “expanded access to innovative therapies through large-scale clinical trials,” the release said.
Herbst’s research has largely focused on lung cancer and led a study that developed the Lung Master Protocol (Lung-MAP), which uses patients’ biomarkers to match them with appropriate cancer treatment.
“He has consistently built bridges between laboratory discovery, clinical trials, and patient care, and his experience guiding large-scale, biomarker-driven research efforts will help propel our cancer research enterprise and foster the collaborative innovation that drives progress against cancer,” Dr. Steven Leach, the cancer center’s previous permanent director, said in the release.
Leach was hired as director of the Dartmouth Cancer Center in 2017, when it was known as the Norris Cotton Cancer Center. He is known for his pancreatic cancer research.
Herbst earned his medical degree from Cornell University and also has a doctorate in molecular cell biology from The Rockefeller University, in addition to master’s degrees in molecular biophysics and biochemistry from Yale, and clinical translational research at Harvard. He completed a fellowship in medicine oncology at Dana Farber Cancer Institute and hematology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, both in Boston.
