David C. Hohn, MD, 1942-2026: ‘A special person, and a remarkable leader’

David C. Hohn, MD, President and CEO of Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center from 1997-2007, died Oct. 30 at age 84.

Dr. Hohn steered Roswell Park through a period of remarkable growth at a time when the institution’s national standing was under threat. Arriving in 1997 from MD Anderson Cancer Center in Texas, where he’d served as Vice President for Patient Care, Dr. Hohn launched an aggressive campaign to modernize the institution’s facilities, strengthen its financial structure, reorganize its research and patient care programs and recruit top-flight physicians and researchers from all over the country.

“He really saved this place,” says Roswell Park President and CEO Candace S. Johnson, PhD. “It was his leadership that turned things around, rebuilt our national reputation and set us on a path where we could grow and become a real leader among the nation’s cancer centers.”

Within a few short years, Dr. Hohn had “turned potential disaster for the renowned hospital into a successful restoration of medical and research strength that leaves the institute well positioned not only as a national cancer center in its own right, but as a key asset for Buffalo’s emerging bioinformatics center and medical campus,” The Buffalo News noted in 2003. “His success is a victory for Buffalo and the entire region.”

It was Dr. Hohn who recruited Dr. Johnson to Roswell Park in 2002 from her role leading basic science research at the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute. Impressed by her extensive experience reviewing National Cancer Institute Cancer Center Support Grant plans for institutions around the country, Dr. Hohn drove out to convince her to join his team in Buffalo.

“David Hohn is the reason I came to Buffalo and to Roswell Park,” says Dr. Johnson. “When he recruited me from Pittsburgh, it was his vision and his passion that convinced me to make the move. So many of our accomplishments as a Roswell Park community bear his indelible imprint. He will be deeply mourned, and greatly missed.”

During Dr. Hohn’s tenure, Roswell Park recruited more than 160 senior faculty and top-tier clinicians and scientists; completed the $250 million renovation and rebuilding of the Roswell Park campus and built the $74 million Center for Genetics & Pharmacology; and implemented changes that made Roswell Park patient care available over a wider region.

He led the cancer center through its 1999 transition from a New York State Department of Health division to an independent public benefit corporation, restoring financial stability. He streamlined Roswell Park’s scientific programs to focus on the cancer center’s strengths in genetics, immunology, therapeutics, biophysical therapies and cancer prevention.

Dr. Hohn’s emphasis on collaboration helped unite Roswell Park’s partners on the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus and in the broader region, improving not only the economic and scientific reach of those institutions but also the quality of life in the surrounding community. With the construction of the Life Sciences Research Complex, he said, “The idea that people can work together in Buffalo and accomplish more together than they could separately is an important symbol.”

His drive to realize the cancer center’s potential continued even after he retired in 2007 and was named Roswell Park’s President Emeritus. In 2010 he helped to plan and launch a facility for manufacturing of cellular therapies that today is the largest center of its kind at any U.S. academic center.

Dr. Hohn understood the value of a good name. “Your reputation is high when you do well,” he reflected in a 2003 interview with The Buffalo News. “It helps with recruitment and donors, and it brings in patients. There’s a halo effect.”

“David Hohn was a special person, and a remarkable leader,” says Dr. Johnson. “He sought out incredible people, he gave us the resources we needed to make a real difference in people’s lives, and he got to see that tremendous potential fulfilled.”  

Born in Tucson, Arizona, Dr. Hohn graduated from the University of Illinois before earning his medical degree  summa cum laude from the University of Illinois School of Medicine in 1970. He was a surgical intern at Rush-Presbyterian St. Luke’s Hospital in Chicago and a resident and later research fellow at the University of California at San Francisco before joining MD Anderson.

For three years he served as Chair of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network, which establishes guidelines for patient care. Closer to home, he was a director on the boards of the Hauptman-Woodward Medical Research Institute, the Buffalo Niagara Partnership and the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra. He was named a Buffalo News Outstanding Citizen in 2007.

Dr. Hohn’s contributions to Roswell Park included philanthropic leadership during his tenure and after his retirement. Over the years, he and his wife, Lucinda, contributed to nearly every major fundraising effort, including special events, capital campaigns, staff appeals and many other initiatives. As President, his generosity and commitment to Roswell Park created a culture of philanthropy and inspired countless others to give. Most recently, Dr. Hohn served as Chair of the Dr. Roswell Park Legacy Society from 2017 to 2025.

Gifts in memory of Dr. Hohn may be made to the Roswell Park Alliance Foundation. A memorial service at Roswell Park is planned for a later date.