Two CIHR Project Grants have been awarded to researchers at our Centre.
Dr YZ Wang and his co-applicants Drs Ci, He and Lin were the recipients of a four-year CIHR Project Grant (Spring 2020 competition) for their proposal, "The role of PRDM16 in neuroendocrine prostate cancer development and aggressiveness."
Three researchers at our Centre have received Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research 2020 awards.
Dr. Faraz Hach received a Scholar Award for his project "Computational Methods For Monitoring The Evolution Of Tumours."
An international consortium of researchers led by our Centre's Dr. Artem Cherkasov and by Dr. François Jean, Associate Professor in UBC’s Faculty of Science, Department of Microbiology and Immunology is receiving $2.1 million from CIHR for their project "Computer-aided discovery of synergistic drug combinations with Remdevisir for COVID-19 through mechanism-based drug repurposing and combinatorial organoid screening", which will use artificial intelligence to search for SARS-CoV-2 inhibitors among known drugs.
Dr. Alex Wyatt has been award a Canadian Cancer Society Impact Grant for his project, "Practical genomic stratification to enable tailored treatment of DNA repair defective prostate cancer." This five-year project will screen blood samples from metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer patients across Canada in order to identify the subset whose tumours are defective in specific classes of DNA damage repair. These patients will be selectively treated on the basis of their results, using chemotherapy or immunotherapy.
Dr. Cherkasov and his team just published a paper in ACS Central Science describing the development of a Deep Docking technology. This AI-based approach enables virtual screening (docking) of billions of molecular structures in a rapid, yet accurate fashion. Deep Docking provides up to 100-fold data reduction and 6000-fold data enrichment for candidate drug molecules. Among other applications, the developed AI-approach allowed rapid screening of 1.36 billion molecules against a critical drug target in COVID-19.
Elie Ritch and Evan Warner of Dr. Wyatt's lab have been awarded CIHR Frederick Banting and Charles Best Canada Graduate Scholarship Doctoral Awards.
The funded projects are “Genomic and clinical characteristics of the hyper-mutant molecular subtype of advanced metastatic prostate cancer studied using circulating tumor DNA” (Ritch) and “Genomic features of metastatic prostate cancer with aberrant DNA damage repair” (Warner).
Dr. Christopher Nguan, director of the Surgical Technologies Experimental Laboratory and Advanced Robotics (STELLAR) facility at UBC, Associate Professor in the Department of Urologics Sciences, and a VPC Associate, lead one of 11 projects to receive funding from the Roche Canada COVID-19 Open Innovation Challenge.
Teck Resources has provided a $250,000 contribution to the VGH & UBC Hospital Foundation for targeted drug discovery into therapeutic solutions to the COVID-19 virus carried out at the Vancouver Prostate Centre. This will support the research program led by Professor Art Cherkasov, which is currently underway.
Click here to read the press release outlining this and other contributions made by Teck Resources to fight the pandemic.
The Vancouver Prostate Centre has responded, along with many in the local Life Sciences community, by donating our inventory of personal protective equipment (PPE) and cleaning products to frontline workers engaged in the fight against COVID-19.
We thank the Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute for coordinating this effort at VCH research sites, and we thank Life Sciences BC and Xenon for coordinating with health authority partners and the BC Centre for Disease Control for collection and distribution.
The Vancouver Prostate Centre (VPC) has a track record of success that has earned it a reputation as one of the world’s most respected cancer facilities. It is a National Centre of Excellence and a designated Centre of Excellence for Commercialization and Research.
The 40th annual Terry Fox Run takes place on Sunday September 20 across Canada, as a virtual event. Please consider donating to or joining our TFRI-VPC team as we raise funds to enable The Terry Fox Foundation & The Terry Fox Research Institute to continue their support of innovative and progressive cancer research programs