Drs Wyatt, Chi & Fonseca awarded Canadian Cancer Society Challenge Grant

Date Posted: 
2022-03-08

Congratulations to Drs Wyatt, Chi and Fonseca on being awarded a three-year Canadian Cancer Society Challenge Grant - Sept 2021 competition for their project, Accelerating clinical development of plasma ctDNA fraction as a management tool in advanced prostate cancer.

Metastatic prostate cancer is incurable but recently approved treatments have increased the life expectancy. However, not all prostate cancers are equal as some people experience highly aggressive disease whereas others have slowly growing tumours. Unfortunately, there are no practical tests that can profile a person’s metastatic disease and estimate disease aggression. Dr. Wyatt and Chi's teams have developed a minimally-invasive biopsy technology that measures DNA shed by metastatic cancers into the bloodstream (termed ‘circulating tumour DNA’). In this CSS Challenge Grant project, the team will leverage this technology to evaluate whether the amount of circulating tumour DNA in blood is an accurate real-time indicator of the proliferative capacity of prostate cancer. The aim is to develop a circulating tumour DNA based computational model to predict life expectancy across different treatment contexts. This practical online tool will be freely available to physicians and provide a foundation for offering a more tailored management strategy to each person with metastatic prostate cancer. 

A World Class Centre

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.

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The 43nd Annual Terry Fox Run is taking place on Sunday September 19, 2023. If you are able, please consider joining and/or donating to our team (tax receipts issued), raising funds for the Terry Fox Foundation's ground-breaking cancer research

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The Second Annual Pars for Prostate golf fundraiser in support of Prostate Cancer Foundation BC takes place September 21, 2022 at Westwood Plateau Golf Course. Join today to take part in this best ball, shotgun style tournament. Skilled holes, putting contest, draw prizes and more. For information and to register please click here.

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