Dr. Michele Carbone has been named interim director of the University of Hawai'i's Cancer Research Center of Hawai'i today at the Board of Regent's monthly meeting on Kauai.

Carbone will begin on Dec. 1 and replaced Dr. Carl Wilhelm-Vogel, who stepped down earlier this month. Vogel will assist in the transition, working with Carbone and Vice Chancellor Gary Ostrander.

The university will launch a nationwide search for a permanent director.

Currently, Carbone is director of the Cancer Research Center of Hawai'i's Thoracic Oncology Program and chair of the Department of Pathology at the John A. Burns School of Medicine. He joined the university in 2006 from Loyola University medical Center in Chicago and has spent most of his career researching thoracic cancer.