KANSAS CITY, Kan. (AP) -- The University of Kansas Cancer Center has named a prominent medical researcher from Georgia as its deputy director.

Dr. Kapil Bhalla plans to join the center's staff Aug. 1. He'll also serve as a professor of internal medicine at the University of Kansas Medical Center in Kansas City, Kan.

Bhalla is an internationally known drug researcher and scientist. He was the founding director of the Atlanta-based Georgia Research Alliance and a professor at the Medical College of Georgia.

He's coming to the Kansas center a month after biologist Shrikant Anant became its associate director for cancer prevention and control.

Anant previously led the gastrointestinal cancers program at the University of Oklahoma Cancer Institute.