CONVERSATION: DR. TIM BYERS

Interim Director, University of Colorado Cancer Center
Grohne Chair in Cancer Prevention and Control
Professor and Associate Dean for Public Health Practice,Colorado School of Public Health

Byers

In January Tim Byers, MD, MPH, became interim director of the University of Colorado Cancer Center, where he had previously been the Deputy Director. He succeeds Paul Bunn, who retired in December after 20 years as director. A national search is now under way for a permanent director.

C3: How do you view your role as interim director?

Byers: I see this as a good opportunity to not only keep UCCC strong, but to also shore up leadership potential among the associate directors and program leaders. I plan to practice team leadership in this interim period, so that a the new permanent director will be able to join an already fully functioning team to take us to the new directions and new heights she/he will envision. I will delegate many of the leadership tasks and responsibilities to the associate directors, managing the process as a team leader. I would have said I will be the “Mike Shanahan” of this all-star team, but maybe I need to re-think that particular analogy.

C3: Does leading a research-driven organization require a different leadership style than another kind of academic organization—and if so, how?

Byers: As UCCC is a matrix cancer center, its management requires an emphasis on communication and collaboration. The UCCC director does have substantial authority over resources, of course, but most of our good outcomes come from collaboration and leveraging. That is the type of leadership we have come to expect from Paul Bunn over the past 20 years. Collaborative leadership requires good communication, patience and a persistent appetite to listen and learn.

C3: What got you interested (and when) in cancer prevention and control—and the role of nutrients and other factors you’ve researched?

Byers: I became interested in disease prevention when I was in general practice, as patients would bring me articles from magazines and ask me what I thought. I had few good answers. So I decided to get training in how we might get better answers to simple questions like “Should I take vitamin pills?” or “What type of diet will lower my cancer risk?” Cancer prevention and control is an important part of the whole, but fundamentally no more important than the other parts, such as basic science, clinical science. Is the brain more important than the heart?

C3: Describe research into cancer disparities.

Byers: Persistent disparities by race and socioeconomic status are a matter of great shame in our country. The answers to disparities will come less from research than from changing our political and social will to solve those problems. Creating a health care system and education system that both work better are the first two key steps. Research institutions need to become advocates for that change, conducting research where it is needed, but also finding effective ways to shed proper light on these problems for the whole of society.

C3: The Cancer Center is the only National Cancer Institute-designated comprehensive cancer center in the Rocky Mountain Region, but what else distinguishes it?

Byers: Each cancer center has its own set of programs and cores and priorities that fit into the local needs and institutions. Ours is not only different, but in many ways, the best. I think the UCCC is characterized by an unusually high level of collaboration and cooperation. A cooperative “can-do” spirit is a historic feature of the Great West that Paul Bunn has been able to harness in the culture of UCCC.

C3: You’ve conducted epidemiological and clinical studies of nutrients as protective factors in prostate, colon, breast and lung cancer. If it’s possible to provide just a few conclusions from that research, what are they?

Byers: When I was studying preventive medicine at the University of Michigan in the late 1970s, I asked my kindergartner son what he learned at school that day. After telling me something about colors and numbers, he turned the tables on me: “What did you learn today?” I couldn’t detail much about biostatistics or epidemiology, so I just said “I learned how people can stay healthy.” “How?” he asked. “Well, never smoke cigarettes, eat good foods, get good sleep, and be physically active.” “What else?” he asked. “That’s about all we really know,” I said. “But you go to school every day, don’t you?” he asked. I think that might have been the very moment I decided to go into research. Indeed, we have learned a lot more detail, but that same general advice still works pretty well. Our challenge in research is not only to develop deeper and more detailed understandings of the root causes and treatments for cancer, but to figure out ways to reduce suffering from cancer by effectively instituting even the simplest ideas.