RALPH DE VERE WHITE, long-time director of the UC Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center, plans to step down June 29. A distinguished professor of urology who was cancer center director for 20 years, De Vere White will continue to serve in a research capacity part-time.

Primo Lara, a medical oncologist who has been on the faculty at UC Davis since 1999, will serve as interim director during the national search for a permanent replacement.

“Ralph de Vere White has been a steadfast, inspirational and influential cancer center director,” said Julie Freischlag, UC Davis vice chancellor for human health sciences and dean of the school of medicine. “His creative leadership and commitment to team science paved the way for the health system’s growing collaborative basic and clinical research enterprise, efforts that directly benefit patients.”