Centre for Lymphoid Cancers

Mission

The mission of the CLC is to better understand the biological, genetic and environmental mechanisms that cause lymphoid cancers, the determinants of their clinical behaviour and how lymphoid cancer treatments work so that more efficient diagnostic tools and therapies can be developed to combat these cancers.

Goals

The CLC maintains provincial, national and international partnerships with multi-disciplinary scientific researchers and clinicians to:

1. Accelerate the development of novel diagnostics and therapeutics for the treatment of lymphoid cancers by fostering a cutting-edge multi-disciplinary research environment with a focus on clinical applications.
   
2. Establish an international centre for the study of lymphoid cancers.
   
3. Facilitate cross-disciplinary research programs focused on understanding the biological mechanisms of lymphoid cancers for the development of novel therapeutic treatments for these cancers.
   
4. Conduct collaborative research programs to develop a more comprehensive understanding of lymphoid cancers.

Lymphoid Cancer

• Lymphoid cancers are cancers that start in the lymphocytes, the cells of the immune system.
  The lymphoid cancers include non-Hodgkin lymphoma, Hodgkin lymphoma, myeloma and lymphocytic leukemia.
• The incidence of the lymphoid cancers is rising faster than any other common cancer seen in North America.
• Together the lymphocyte cancers are the fourth most common cancer in both men and women and if current trends continue they will soon be the third.
• The risk of developing a lymphoid cancer in Canada 
  • is about 1 in 30
  • has been doubling every 20 years for more than 70 years
• Lymphoid cancers are among the most common of cancers that affect children and young adults but they can affect patients of any age or background.
• Highly effective treatments are available for most lymphoid cancers and can cure many patients even when the disease is advanced. However, these treatments can be difficult to tolerate and ultimately may cure only about 50% of patients.
• The Center for Lymphoid Cancers at the BC Cancer Agency is a world recognized leader in research into the causes and treatment of lymphoid cancers. 

Personnel

The Centre for Lymphoid Cancer (CLC) is composed of a lead group of research-clinicians based at the BC Cancer Agency' s Vancouver Centre and a cooperating group of 40 hemato-oncologists throughout BC that coordinate the treatment of lymphoid cancers for the province. The laboratory scientists of the CLC are from diverse scientific backgrounds such as hematopathology, cytogenetics, molecular genetics, genomics and epidemiology and are located at the BC Cancer Agency Genome Science Center, BC Cancer Research Center and the University of British Columbia (UBC).

For more information, please visit our Personnel section.