George Weiner, M.D., director of the Holden Comprehensive Cancer Center at the University of Iowa, has been elected vice-president/president-elect of the Association of American Cancer Institutes (AACI). His term began January 1, and he will become AACI president in the fall of 2014.

Weiner is a UI professor of internal medicine and holds the C.E. Block Chair of Cancer Research. He also is a faculty member in the Interdisciplinary Graduate Program in Immunology. He is an expert on lymphoma—a cancer that affects white blood cells—and his research focuses on studying anti-cancer antibodies and developing novel approaches to immunotherapy of lymphoma.

Weiner plans to focus his AACI presidency on "the academic difference," a reference to the increasingly central role that academic cancer centers play in cancer patient care and research.

"AACI centers have a unique ability of to explore the complex molecular makeup of cancer in individual patients, and use that information to provide the best possible multidisciplinary care for each patient while also advancing cancer research," Weiner says.

"I look forward to George’s expanded leadership role with AACI," says AACI Executive Director Barbara Duffy Stewart in a statement from the AACI. "As an administrator and researcher, George possesses an exemplary skill set that will serve AACI well as it continues to support its members’ collaborative drive toward a cancer-free world.”

The Association of American Cancer Institutes comprises 95 leading cancer research centers in the United States. AACI's membership roster includes National Cancer Institute-designated centers and academic-based cancer research programs that receive NCI support.