Marion Man and Scott Shaw embody the spirit of Lunar New Year — a time to give back to the community and help those in need.
As the recipients of this year’s BC Cancer Foundation Catalyst Award, presented to honour an outstanding contribution of time, leadership or financial support, their extraordinary generosity is a year-round philosophy for the Vancouver couple.
Champions of social change, their significant investment in the Foundation is fuelling innovation in cancer prevention and early detection research at BC Cancer.
Following Scott’s own personal experience with lung cancer screening, Marion and Scott were highly motivated to support BC Cancer’s world-leading lung cancer research. They generously matched donations allowing BC Cancer’s Breathomics Lab to acquire cutting-edge equipment. This technology is enabling the team to study thousands of breath samples to detect early lung cancer and understand how changes in the lung microbiome may indicate lung cancer development in never smokers.
After Scott’s sister in Taiwan was diagnosed with late-stage lung cancer, they took a special interest in BC Cancer’s Dr. Stephen Lam’s groundbreaking work in discovering how air pollution causes lung cancer in women of Asian descent, a population in which cases have significantly increased over the years.
More recently, they have also supported BC Cancer research in Circulating Tumour DNA (ctDNA), an emerging tool that uses a simple blood test to detect tiny DNA fragments from a patient’s cancer to provide insight into potential treatment.
“Early detection is key to saving lives, and supporting the BC Cancer Foundation allows us to help ensure more people are diagnosed at a time when treatment can make the biggest difference. By investing in this research, we are giving hope, and a better chance for a healthy future, to people facing cancer,” say Marion and Scott.
This Lunar New Year, join the BC Cancer Foundation in recognizing leaders in the community who are making a difference in the lives of people in B.C. facing cancer by donating today.
