$12M funding for cancer research projects

Toronto, ON – A new $1.25 million study funded by the Canadian Cancer Society could lead to the first personalized treatment for some people with pancreatic cancer, one of the most hard-to-treat forms of the disease. The study is one of 10 studies being funded with a total of just under $12 million.

Dr. Steven Gallinger, a surgical oncologist at the University Health Network and cancer researcher at the Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute at Mount Sinai Hospital, has received a new Impact Grant to study the link between BRCA mutations and pancreatic cancer.

“Pancreatic cancer is a complex and devastating disease with a very poor prognosis because it is usually discovered too late and we don’t yet have good treatments for it,” he says. “With this research, we are taking the important first steps in understanding the causes of the disease and potentially developing a personalized treatment for this group of patients.”

The Canadian Cancer Society Impact Grants are the largest single grants offered by the Society with a maximum value of $1.25 million per grant over 5 years. These highly prestigious grants are intended to fund the best, most promising cancer science in the country and move it significantly forward.

The projects receiving funding are as follows:

– Bell, John; Ottawa Hospital Research Institute; Tailored oncolytic viral therapeutics for pancreatic cancer. Funding amount: $1,244,770

– Brown, Grant; University of Toronto; The regulated protein re-localization response to DNA replication stress and DNA damage. Funding amount: $1,243,145

– Gallinger, Steven; The Toronto Hospital (General Division) – UHN; Hallmarks and therapeutic implications of “BRCAness” in pancreatic cancer. Funding amount: $1,229,504

– Hawkins, Cynthia; Hospital for Sick Children; The role of histones in the development of pediatric diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma. Funding amount: $1,230,477

– Hynynen, Kullervo; Sunnybrook Research Institute; MRI-guided focused ultrasound for enhanced drug delivery for liver and head and neck cancers. Funding amount: $1,222,292

– Khokha, Rama; Ontario Cancer Institute/PMCC – UHN; Hormone signalling in mammary cells informs breast cancer risk & treatment. Funding amount: $1,222,500

– Sonenberg, Nahum; McGill University; Targeting translation in cancer. Funding amount: $1,141,236

– Sung, Lillian; Hospital for Sick Children; Development and validation of a pediatric cancer-specific symptom screening and assessment tool. Funding amount: $906,597

– Therrien, Marc; University of Montreal; Novel strategies for therapeutic targeting of RAF kinases. Funding amount: $1,250,000

– Wrana, Jeffrey; Mount Sinai Hospital; Establishing a biological network strategy for personalizing prognosis in non-muscle invasive bladder cancer. Funding amount: $1,249,950

Total funding: $11,940,471