NCI-designated cancer center leader dies

Ken Cowan, MD, PhD, a long-time leader of the Omaha-based University of Nebraska Medical Center's NCI-designated cancer center, died Dec. 15.

For 21 years, Dr. Cowan served as chief of the medical breast cancer section for the medicine branch in the Public Health Service at the National Cancer Institute, according to a Dec. 16 system news release. In the role, he oversaw lab researchers and clinical staff involved in breast cancer clinical research at NCI.

In 1999, he joined UNMC as director of the then-called Eppley Cancer Center and the Eppley Institute for Cancer Research. The NCI-designated cancer center changed its name in 2017 to the Fred and Pamela Buffett Cancer Center. Dr. Cowan led the cancer center from 1999 to 2017, when he stepped down, but he remained at the institute as a full-time faculty member and clinician.

"During more than two decades as director of the Fred & Pamela Buffett Cancer Center, Ken was instrumental in leading the cancer center to sustained research growth, advanced clinical care, and unprecedented national and international recognition," Interim UNMC Chancellor H. Dele Davies, MD, said in the news release. "He also was the visionary behind the Fred & Pamela Buffett Cancer Center facility."

Dr. Cowan is survived by his wife, Alison Freifeld, MD, professor emeritus of the UNMC division of infectious diseases, two daughters and two grandchildren.

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