INDIANAPOLIS – Cancer physician and researcher Patrick J. Loehrer Sr., M.D., has been named director of the Indiana University Melvin and Bren Simon Cancer Center.
Dr. Loehrer also will serve as associate dean for cancer research and hold the title HH Gregg Professor of Oncology, pending approval by the board of trustees, at the Indiana University School of Medicine.
D. Craig Brater, M.D., dean of the IU School of Medicine, made the announcement Monday.
“I am very pleased to be able to name Pat Loehrer as the second director of the IU Simon Cancer Center,” said Dr. Brater. “Pat is a great role model for our students and a compassionate caregiver to his patients. He has shown exceptional leadership qualities, progressive ideas and has been a dedicated member of the faculty for the past 20 years.”
Dr. Loehrer is the second person to lead the cancer center since its founding in 1992. He had been serving as interim director since February 2009 following the death of Stephen D. Williams, M.D., the founding director.
Dr. Loehrer, who joined the IU faculty in 1990, is an internationally recognized researcher and specialist in testicular cancer, gastrointestinal cancer and thymoma, and he is consistently named in “America’s Top Doctors for Cancer.”
One of the original four medical oncologists at the IU School of Medicine, Dr. Loehrer most recently was the Kenneth Wiseman Professor of Medicine and the director of the Division of Hematology-Oncology for the IU School of Medicine. He was associate director of clinical research at the medical school from 2002 to 2006 and deputy director of the IU Simon Cancer Center from 2006 to 2009.
For two decades, he served as the founding chair of the Hoosier Oncology Group, a statewide collaboration of academic and community oncologists that united for the purpose of conducting clinical trials in the community setting
He is principal investigator at Indiana University for the Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group, one of the first and largest cooperative groups of researchers and health professionals focused on conducting multi-center cancer clinical trials. Dr. Loehrer has served on the board of directors of the American Board of Internal Medicine and was chair of the Medical Oncology Subcommittee. He was recently appointed to the Oncology Drug Advisory Committee of the Food and Drug Administration.
As director of the cancer center, he leads more than 220 investigators who work to find better ways to prevent, detect and treat cancer. IU’s cancer research is known around the world, including improving the cure rate of testicular cancer from 10 percent to nearly 95 percent. IU researchers have gained an international recognition for treatment of breast, gastrointestinal, genitourinary, hematologic, and thoracic cancers as well as bone marrow and stem cell transplantations.
Dr. Loehrer leads Indiana’s only National Cancer Institute (NCI)-designated cancer center that provides patient care. This designation recognizes IU Simon Cancer Center’s scientific excellence and helps fund life-saving research that ultimately benefits patients. There are only 65 such centers in the nation.
Dr. Loehrer earned his medical degree from Rush Medical College in Chicago in 1978. He completed an internship and residency in internal medicine at Rush-Presbyterian St. Luke’s Medical Center prior to completing his medical oncology fellowship at Indiana University.
