The Vision of Experimental Therapeutics is to define better intervention strategies for individuals with aggressive cancers through: (i) a better understanding of disease classification and patient selection criteria, (ii) development and use of more predictive models (e.g. patient-derived cancer xenograft models) for targeted indications, (iii) a better understanding of tumor-stromal interactions and mechanistic actions of targeted therapies; (iv) integration of relevant imaging tools to rapidly assess therapeutic potential of treatments, (v) application of genetic information to better understand the immediate impacts of treatment and how to design better treatments, (vi) application of high-throughput, next generation genomics approaches to novel discovery of new therapeutics and (vii) maintenance and expansion of the needed infrastructure to develop therapeutics in an academic setting.
Programs
Investigational Drug Program
IDP is positioned to conduct the stages of the pharmaceutical value chain including: discovery, pharmaceutical formulation, manufacturing and preclinical / safety pharmacology testing activities required to initiate first in-human clinical trials and to ensure Good Manufacturing Practice (cGMP) and Good Laboratory Practice (cGLP) regulations are met.
Pancreas Centre BC
Despite decades of intense research, the five-year overall survival rate in pancreatic cancer is less than 10% due to late detection, high recurrence rates, chemoresistance and limited knowledge of clinically relevant biomarkers. Pancreas Centre BC was established in 2012 as a multicentre partnership between BC Cancer, Vancouver Coastal Health and University of British Columbia. Its mission is to combat pancreatic cancer and our team is committed to foster and lead research into early disease detection and the development of personalized treatments in pancreatic cancer. The centre strives to become a centre of excellence for translational and clinical pancreatic cancer research and patient care, and focuses on four major goals:
- Lead the development and implementation of individualized care in pancreatic cancer;
- Support translational and clinical research, as well as local, national and international collaborations to accelerate clinically relevant discovery;
- Provide mentorship to future researchers and clinical leaders;
- Deliver short term and significant impact on outcomes for patients at BC Cancer.
One of the strengths of Pancreas Centre BC is its multidisciplinary team with expertise in clinical care, clinical trials and translational research. Research focuses on integration of multi-omics, clinical parameter and outcome data. Our team is comprised of clinicians, clinical support, scientific, technical, bioinformatics and biostatistics personnel with unique and diverse expertise. We support a collaborative research culture by engaging with local and national research and clinical care centres. To this end, Pancreas Centre BC has developed unique core resources accessible to clinical and scientific research community including a clinical outcomes unit, a tumour biobank, a tissue microarray and a patient-derived pre-clinical model facility.
Pancreas Centre BC is part of PancOne, a national collaborative network funded by Pancreatic Cancer Canada (PCC). We also lead a national initiative funded by the Terry Fox Research Institute, Pancreatic Cancer Canada and BC Cancer Foundation called the Enhanced Pancreatic Cancer Profiling for Individualized Care (EPPIC) project, which aims to sequence and molecularly characterize up to 400 metastatic pancreatic cancers in order to accelerate the development and clinical implementation of personalized medicine. As a clinical research centre, Pancreas Centre BC is in a unique position to develop a path towards the validation and implementation of novel clinical approaches to treat pancreatic cancer.
More information at www.pancreascentrebc.ca
BC Cancer Foundation is the fundraising partner of BC Cancer, which includes BC Cancer Research. Together with our donors, we are changing cancer outcomes for British Columbians by funding innovative research and personalized treatment and care.