Grants

Prostate cancer research senior scientists that the foundation has funded in the past like Dr Emma Gunn, Dr Marianne Sadar, Dr Kim Chi, have achieved enormous progress in their work and are recognized not only nationally but around the world as well. Their achievements are publicized in publications; in conferences and each is recognition by their peers in the field of prostate cancer. The following highlights some of the great outcomes because of Prostate Cancer Foundation BC’s granting program.

Dr. Joyce Davison has been funded by PCFBC to undertake a study to help the clinical community understand the patient decision making process particularly with regard to how men chose Active Surveillance as a treatment option for low-risk prostate cancer. While the study continues to enroll patients, it has been subject of presentations at National and International meetings from Saskatoon and Edmonton to San Francisco and Nice, France. Her work was highlighted in Urology Today and her findings are being used to refine programs to support men while on Active Surveillance at the BC Cancer Agency and the SK Cancer Agency. This is an excellent example of how PCFBC funds have been used to directly affect clinician - patient communication and improve patient care by helping the clinical community understand patient’s concerns and how to better communicate the benefits and limitations of the various treatment options available to men diagnosed with low-risk prostate cancer.

Dr. Jennifer Locke was a graduate student at the Vancouver Prostate Centre that received a scholarship support from PCFBC. She is a great example of how support from PCFBC has helped support training of some of BC’s brightest students interested in pursuing a biomedical career in prostate cancer. She worked under the supervision of Drs. Colleen Nelson and Emma Guns at the Vancouver Prostate Centre. She was an extremely productive student with numerous National and International presentations and publications in high impact scientific journals to her credit. The subject of her work centered on understanding how advanced prostate cancers become resistant to hormone therapy. Her work demonstrated that in some advanced prostate cancer cases, the cancer cells adapt to become able to produce hormones directly, thus circumventing the actions of therapies designed to block testicular hormone synthesis. This understanding that cancer cells can make their own hormones has helped direct use of new drugs for men with hormone therapy resistant disease such as Abiratarone and Medivation. This is a seminal observation that dramatically altered how clinicians think about advanced disease and has spurred aggressive new drug discovery efforts by numerous international pharmaceutical industries. Because such important work was conducted here, Industry leaders such as Pfizer have partnered with researchers at the Vancouver Prostate Centre to explore new ways to target hormone-resistant prostate cancer.

Ms Darya Habibi is a graduate student in the UBC Genetics Program under the supervision of Dr. Christopher Ong in the department of Surgery. Ms. Habibi’s work has focused on identification and characterization of a novel master growth regulator of prostate cancers. Dr. Ong and Dr. Martin Gleave independently observed increased expression of a gene called SEMA3C in high-risk prostate cancers. Ms. Habibi has gone on to show that this factor can activate numerous growth signaling pathways in prostate cancers that were each previously thought to be regulated by separate factors. Understanding that this factor that has traditionally been appreciated to regulate early embryonic processes such as nerve and blood vessel development can have such a strong impact on growth of prostate cancers has lead to funding of Canadian Cancer Society Research Institute and Cancer Research Society, Inc. major operating grants to Dr. Ong. to explore ways to therapeutically target SEMA3C in men with advanced prostate cancer.

Mr. Mazyar Ghaffari is a graduate student in the UBC Experimental Medicine Program under the supervision of Dr. Michael Cox in Vancouver Prostate Centre and Dept. of Urologic Sciences. PCFBC has helped support Mr. Ghaffari’s work to understand how a specific genetic change that occurs in half of prostate cancers affects how disease presents and progresses. Previous work by the Cox lab and others has shown that this genetic change causes prostate cancer to acquire growth and metastatic characteristics. Mr. Ghaffari’s work has shown that a developmental pathway critical to processes that control how cells move and interact with each other in complex tissues are expressed again as prostate cells become cancerous. His work has been critical to the establishment of a partnership between researchers at the Vancouver Prostate Centre and Takata Seiyaku, the largest pharmaceutical company in Japan; to explore use of a drug they developed targeting this developmental pathway in prostate cancer. This important agreement will support the first preclinical testing of this drug in prostate cancer and set the stage for clinical trials of this drug for treatment in prostate cancer patients.

For more information, please click here to download our 2010 Grant Report.

Prostate Cancer Foundation BC Grants 2008-2011

2011 Grants Given $110,000 in total

$25,000 to Yanting Chiang, UBC Department of Exp. Therapeutics BC Cancer Agency Targeting ASAP1 in Prostate Cancer Metastasis

$20,000 to Kevin Tam, Exp. Medicine Program UBC, The Prostate Centre Characterization of SEMA3C signalling a potential pathway in PC

$40,000 to Dr. Thomas Cordonnier, The Vancouver Prostate Centre

CRISP-3 as a target to improve anti-androgen treatment lethal PC

$25,000 to Peter Raven, Exp Medical Program UBC, The Prostate Centre Cancer/testis antigens as biomarkers and therapeutic targets in over ex­pressing PC.

2010 Grants Given $151,000 in total

BC Cancer Agency:

The Prostate Center:

UBC:

Inspire Health:

BC Cancer Agency:

2009 Grants Given $130,000 in total

The Prostate Center:

VGH:

2008 Grants Given $90,000 in total

BC Cancer Agency:

UBC:

The Prostate Center:

The Pioneer Award and Founders Award are special recipient-titled awards that recognize the contributions of each recipient in their quest for Prostate Cancer education and research. The 2011 recipients are:

The Val Strijack Pioneer Award was presented to Dr. Thomas Cordonnier from the Vancouver Prostate Centre for his work into CRISP3 as a target to improve anti-androgen MDV3100 treatment for lethal prostate cancer.

As a founding member of Prostate Cancer Foundation BC, Val Stijack was a pioneer in websites, logos and anything electronic. Diagnosed himself in 1994, Val was initially on the Support Group Steering Committee that later led to incorporation as a Foundation. Val started the Abbotsford Support Group as there was then no group beyond Surrey. This led to spin-off groups in Mission and Chilliwack and assisted in getting a Langley group going for a time. As well as serving as the only chair of the Abbotsford Support Group, Val was the chair of Prostate Cancer Foundation BC when Don Wilson stepped down and continued as Past-Chair and Director when Ted Butterfield became Chair. Val was an active member of the Canadian Prostate Cancer Research Initiative (CPCRI) who met in Toronto and Montreal (2000-2004). He sat with Len Gross on the SPORE Committee at the University of Washington, Seattle. Always pitching in, Val was an active member of the “run” committee for 13 years. Val designed and maintained the first foundation website, the first walk/run website, the first logos, electronic letterhead and anything the foundation needed. Val was truly a pioneer in moving the foundation into the electronic age. Val has been the longest sitting director of the Foundation; 12 years from it’s beginning in 1998 until Feb 2010. Val was involved in the difficult negotiations with PCC that lead to the current affiliation. Val has always been the Foundation’s contact with other like minded organizations across Canada including Nova Scotia and Ottawa.

Although Val is now retired as a director he continues to be the Chair of the Abbotsford Support Group and is co-chair on the BC Support Group Council.

The Don Wilson Founders Award was presented to Yanting Chiang for her research into Prostate Cancer Metastasis. Shortly after having been treated for Prostate Cancer in 1993 Don Wilson became active helping develop survivor run prostate support groups in BC. New survivor run support groups developed quickly and successfully through the efforts of a handful of men who networked and shared this common desire. As a play on the familiar abbreviation for the PSA test the support groups were called “Prostate Support and Awareness” with the physical location tacked on. In the lower mainland several PSA groups sprung up. By 1997 Don’s interest turned to drawing greater government attention to this disease and to lobby for funding for research aimed at providing better care and treatment of Prostate Cancer. In April of 1997, Don contacted the Chairs of local support groups, which at that time included: Vancouver, North Vancouver, Surrey, Tri-City, White Rock and Abbotsford and asked them if they would meet with him to form what became known as the “ Greater Vancouver Region- Fraser Valley PSA Groups”( GVR-FV, PSA Groups) They met for the first time at a meeting room at Don’s employer, BCIT. Everyone agreed to serve on the Executive Committee and meet on a regular monthly basis with Don as Chairman. The numbers attending began to swell as PSA Chairs brought members from their support groups to the meetings. One of the members proposed that we form a non profit Foundation to raise funds. The GVR-FV members voted to proceed with the initiative and Don was asked to pursue this. In due course they received their Certificate of Incorporation on January 14, 1998 and on July 21, 1998 they received Registration as a charity. The words Prostate Cancer were not available for use in the foundation s name alternatively the foundation was to be named “BC Foundation for Prostate Disease” which years later was changed to PCFBC. Don served as Chair and President of the Foundation until stepping down in 2001. During his tenure, it was an exciting time, the accomplishments of the Foundation achieved were many fold, they initiated or influenced a lot of wonderful changes that have benefited many men.

Don stayed on as an active Past Chair with the Foundation until June, 2004. In Don’s words “I am very proud of the volunteer work and the team of men who served on the Foundation with me, together we accomplished an enormous amount. I treasure this time as some of the most important work of my life.”

Donald F. Wilson PhD

Listed below are the 2010 recipients:

The Gordon Dunn 2010 Pioneer Award was presented to Dr. Pippa Hawley for her research into difficult cancer symptoms. In 1998, Gordon formed the first support group for men with prostate cancer at an advanced stage. He lead the monthly meetings until December 2006, when Gordon was physically unable to continue the program, but was still active as an invited speaker at support group meetings. Even in the BC Palliative Care Program, he was very anxious to help others. Gordon Dunn passed away January 16, 2011.

The Jack Carlisle 2010 Founders Award was presented to Dr. Subrata Deb for his research into the potential reasons of treatment failure. Director of Prostate Cancer Foundation from 2006-2009, and a member of the Canadian Prostate Research Initiative Management Committee from 2007-2009, Jack was honoured with The Ticknor Memorial Award for Prostate Cancer in June 2008. He has also served as Chair of the Men's Health Committee for the Aga Khan Ismaili Community and is the current Co-Chair of the North Shore Prostate Cancer Support Group. Jack contributes to various hospital foundations by volunteering and has also organized numerous seminars to raise awareness. Jack Carlisle passed away in December of 2011

Prostate Cancer Foundation BC’s granting committee is made up of Scientists, Doctors, Professors, Researchers and others in the field of prostate cancer. The committee also has input and participation from members of support groups and the medical community.

All grant applications provided to the committee are kept confidential. The granting committee receives numerous excellent applications each year and it is a difficult task selecting the best. The selected recipients of our grants are supervised and monitored for their performance and achievements. All grant recipients are eager to share with us their results, to speak to our support groups and provide us with a progress report and final report co-signed by their principal investigator.

Our granting committee decisions are based on the quality of the application. The work and dedication of our committee members reflects a foundation mandate of support - supporting prostate cancer research.

Our funds provide seed capital to students and post doctoral researchers enabling them to apply for national funding that will further enhance their research.

2011 Review Committee: