Our donors are helping us lead the way in...
Basic Science Re
search
Exploiting the wealth of genomic data generated by
sequencing patient tumours
Thanks to advancing technology and
improved understanding of cancer,
new areas of science are now critical to
the study of cancer and how to defeat
it—areas such as epigenetics, clinical
genomics and computational biology.
Funds raised through our
BILLION
DOLLAR CHALLENGE
are enabling
leaders at Princess Margaret Cancer
Centre to recruit eminent scientists
and physicians to our cancer centre to
build our expertise in these new areas,
as well as build additional strength in
important areas such as immunology
and biobanking.
“It’s a tremendous endorsement of
our work and the reputation of our
institution that over a dozen world-
leading scientists and clinician-scientists
have re-located to the Princess Margaret
Cancer Centre in the past several years,
to continue their important research in
areas critical to cancer medicine,” explains
Dr. Benjamin Neel, Research Director.
Clinical genomics and bioinformatics are
expanding areas within our basic science
research team. Currently, The Princess
Margaret is sequencing the tumours
of hundreds of patients through our
IMPACT and COMPACT studies, and our
research team, together with genetic
specialists and pathologists, is creating
and testing ways to accurately and
efficiently sequence the tumour tissue,
store and retrieve the raw data, and
analyze the data to find the important
information to be gleaned from it.
Princess Margaret Cancer Centre has a
goal of sequencing the DNA of all our
new patients’ tumours by 2018.
Thanks to a ‘superfund’ of $50 million
established in 2013 by Emmanuelle
Gattuso, her husband, Allan Slaight and
the Slaight family, Dr. Benjamin Neel,
Research Director for Princess Margaret
Cancer Centre, has been able to recruit
over a dozen of the world’s brightest
scientists and researchers to build
additional ‘bench strength’ in key
areas of cancer research and medicine
including pathology, biobanking,
epigenetics, clinical genomics and
computational biology.
Emmanuelle, a cancer survivor herself,
has made it her life mission to improve
cancer care for Canadians. She has seen
first-hand how her philanthropic support
has created improved models of care for
breast cancer patients.
L to R:
Dr. Benjamin Haibe-Kains,
Emmanuelle Gattuso, Dr. Trevor Pugh,
Dr. Michael Hoffman, Dr. Ralph DaCosta
Enabling a global recruitment drive
