Today’s Cancer Control Research program began as the Division of Epidemiology in 1976 as the importance of environmental and behavioral risk factors in the genesis of cancer became clear. The first division head, Dr. Mark Elwood in collaboration with BC Cancer clinical staff initiated grant funded studies of head and neck cancers, melanoma, and breast cancer. The breast cancer studies led to participation in a cross-Canada study to evaluate whether breast screening mammography reduced mortality from the disease. The success of the study ultimately led to today’s cross-Canada provincial mammography screening programs. The melanoma study led to a series of studies by Division scientists, locally and internationally, over some 20 years, which elucidated the key role of sun and artificial ultraviolet radiation exposure, as well as individual genetic factors in the genesis of this cancer. The findings of such studies, and others internationally, led to today's large scale skin protection programs aimed at melanoma prevention worldwide.
The name changed to the Division of Epidemiology, Biometry & Occupational Oncology in 1982 as it expanded its field in the area of biometry in a ground breaking collaboration between Dr. Andrew Coldman and Dr. Jim Goldie of the Advanced Therapeutic unit to explain statistically how cancer cells gradually developed resistance to initially successful chemotherapy treatment. Andrew ultimately became the VP for Population Oncology in 2006.
As the Division’s mandate expanded, its name changed again in 1984 to The Department of Epidemiology, Biometry and Occupational Oncology, listed under the Research Centre with the advent of a collaboration with what was then the provincial Worker’s Compensation Board in a program to reduce incidence and mortality from cancers due to workplace carcinogen exposure, led by the Department’s head at the time, Dr. Pierre Band.
Division scientists also worked with Dr. Hans Stich’s Environmental Carcinogenesis Unit, and in 1990, the Unit was absorbed into the Division; programs including Dr. Miriam Rosin, who had developed an international program on prevention and treatment of oral cancers, including today’s BC Oral Cancer Prevention Program.
In 1997, the department was renamed to today’s Cancer Research Program, whose scope now also included providing predictions of regional cancer burden in each Health Unit in BC up to 40 years in the future, which had proven important in situating our current regional cancer centres. The program, led by Dr. John Spinelli, Dr. Nhu Le and Richard Gallagher had also established strategic collaborations with the Genome Sciences Centre investigators as the importance of an individual’s genetic makeup interacted with external and lifestyle risk factors in the genesis of cancer and genetic epidemiology (GENICS) in 2003.
In 2005, as anti-cancer agents, as well as detection and treatment costs escalated worldwide, a Health Economics program in cancer was initiated in CCR in Vancouver, led by Dr. Stuart Peacock. In collaboration with the University of British Columbia, Simon Fraser University, and analogous organizations in Toronto and funded long term by major grants from the Canadian Cancer Society. The Canadian Centre for Applied Research in Cancer Control (ARCC) was initiated to conduct research aimed at optimizing cancer treatment for patients and maximizing value to provincial health ministries and the federal government across Canada. Additionally, led by senior scientist, Mary McBride in 2005, a further initiative entitled Childhood Adolescents and Young Adult Cancer Survivors (CAYACS) Program provides evidence based data for development of strategies for younger cancer survivors.