How B.C. Donors Support Cancer Research and Improvements to Care: Part II

In addition to supporting our early detection research efforts, BC Cancer Foundation donors have also supported summer student internships and clinical software.

Student Internships

Student internships are opportunities for university students to gain hands-on experience in cancer research. Our Early Detection Research Group has been fortunate to secure a number of studentships over the years to further our research efforts.

Our first student funded by the Foundation, Stephanie Ruscheinsky, focused her work on analyzing women’s risk factors for developing cancer. I’ve always thought of these studentship opportunities as a ‘win-win’ situation: students gain practical research experience while the Agency expands its research capacity.

Software

A number of our projects supported by the Foundation donors have also been implemented clinically, such as the EBRT collision detection software.

The purpose of this software is to predict potential collisions between the treatment unit and patient during radiation therapy. Predicting these collisions in treatment planning can save a substantial amount of time, stress and resources for both patients and radiation staff.

What is most exciting is that we also plan to share this software with other BC Cancer Agency locations in the upcoming months, allowing our software to improve patient care province-wide.

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These and future projects have the potential to directly benefit cancer patients in B.C., and could someday benefit cancer patients around the world. With the BC Cancer Foundation’s continued support, we can further improve the lives of those who are impacted by cancer.

In the end, donors are just as important as the researchers – thank you for making our work possible!

I’ll return later this week for my final blog post, to share where our research efforts are headed next!

Rasika