Administration
Director
The Center is directed by Dr. D. Neil Hayes a medical oncologist and clinical researcher internationally known for cancer genomics. Dr. Hayes is Assistant Dean for Cancer Research, the division chief of Hematology and Oncology at UTHSC, the Van Vleet Endowed Professor in Medical Oncology. Dr. Hayes has secondary appointments in the Department of Genetics, Genomics, and Informatics and the Department of Preventive Health in the College of Medicine at the University of Tennessee Health Sciences Center. He is also appointed professor of Bioinformatics at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. Dr. Hayes is internationally recognized as a principal investigator on The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA), a $300 million, groundbreaking, multisite project to understand cancer at its molecular level through genome sequencing and bioinformatics. Dr. Hayes is also an expert clinical trialist with a focus on treating patients with head and neck cancers, and tumors of the mouth, throat, tonsils, tongue, thyroid, and salivary gland.
Dr. Hayes earned his medical degree from the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. He completed his residency at Boston University School of Medicine and a clinical fellowship at Tufts New England Medical Center. He completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute in Boston. Dr. Hayes also holds a Master of Public Health degree from the Harvard Chan School of Public Health and a Master of Science degree from Tufts New England School of Medicine in clinical research.
Deputy Director
Ramesh Narayanan, PhD, MBA, is the deputy director of the Center for Cancer Research. Dr. Narayanan oversees all aspects of the UTHSC Center for Cancer Research, including development of the leadership structure, scientific program development, philanthropy, educational programs, and scientific initiatives. In particular, he will have oversight on two basic science programs, cancer cell biology and chemical biology. Dr. Narayanan was a postdoctoral fellow at Baylor College of Medicine before transitioning to industry. He served as the director of Drug Discovery for a public biotech firm until 2013, prior to joining UTHSC. Dr. Narayanan has published more than 60 peer-reviewed manuscripts and is a co-inventor in more than 100 patents. Molecules discovered and evaluated by Dr. Narayanan and his team have been licensed to industries and are in various stages of preclinical and clinical development.