Spirit of Giving
December 22, 2015
As this is the week leading up to Christmas, I would like to wish everyone all the very best over the holiday season. Each year working at the BC Cancer Agency has been a new adventure and I am grateful to work here. Every person who is treated at the Agency has the opportunity to exceed their potential and it is a privilege to experience this every day.
It’s also the perfect time of time of year to thank the donors who have been key to research and innovation. These projects directly affect patient care and outcomes.
Donor support leads to innovative work
The BC Cancer Agency is an organization with innovative projects that can affect changes on a patient level or a population level. Often these projects provide initial data that helps support larger grants in the future. Every donation makes a difference in the care and research that can be achieved right here.
A few of the projects that have been funded by donors include:
- Our gastro-esophageal cancer research program. Specifically, large donations from Lorne Wickerson and family, and the Lam family enabled us to create a tumor repository of cancers, allowing us to link this to the database of patient related outcomes.
- A project with the Department of Physical Therapy (Dr. Kristen Campbell) was funded from proceeds from the Underwear Affair, allowing us to explore if oxaliplatin-based chemotherapy, used in colon cancer, caused cognitive changes also known as “chemo brain”.
- In addition, I am part of the Personalized Onco-Genomics program which is funded by the BC Cancer Foundation. This unique program uses state of the art genome sequencing technology and bioinformatics from the Genome Science Centre to gain a better understanding of tumor biology and hopefully better treatment options.
- Proceeds from the Ride to Conquer Cancer have also supported our clinical trials units so that we can continue to bring novel experimental treatments for patients so that we can advance the care in British Columbia.
Howie
