Congratulations to the recipients of the BC Cancer Foundation (BCCF) Rising Stars Graduate Awards competition!

This year’s awardees are: 

The 2025 Dr. Chew Wei Memorial Prize in Cancer Research was awarded to Dr. Poul Sorensen for his revolutionary contributions to pediatric cancer diagnostics and care. The award is a UBC Faculty of Medicine National Research Prize, which celebrates individuals who exemplify excellence in scientific research and ongoing impact in their respective fields.

Each year, the UBC Faculty of Medicine (FoM) recognizes faculty members who have made exceptional contributions in the areas of education, research and/or service, and who are dedicated to advancing both the Faculty’s values and vision of transforming health for everyone.

Two BC Cancer researchers are recipients of the 2025 UBC FoM Distinguished Achievement Awards in the following categories: 

Canadian researchers have developed an effective new technique for identifying aggressive medulloblastoma – the most common type of malignant brain tumour in children – and potentially sparing young patients from unnecessary treatments and their harmful long-term side effects. 

The technique, spearheaded by researchers at BC Cancer, BC Children’s Hospital and UBC’s department of pathology and laboratory medicine, can help doctors tailor treatments to individual patients and ensure high-risk cases receive the intensive therapy they need.

Congratulations to the recipients of the BC Cancer Foundation (BCCF) 2024 Rising Stars Award competition!

This year’s awardees are: 

Researchers at BC Cancer, the University of British Columbia (UBC), Harvard Medical School and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK) have pinpointed what could be the early genetic origins of breast cancer—cancer-like mutations appearing in the cells of healthy women.

Dr. Poul Sorensen is the recipient of the 2024 Doctors of BC Terry Fox Medal, a prestigious award recognizing outstanding individuals who have achieved success in clinical practice, research and/or teaching to advance cancer care. A distinguished scientist at the BC Cancer Research Institute (BCCRI) and professor in the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at the University of British Columbia (UBC), Dr. Sorensen was selected based on his remarkable contributions to the field of pediatric cancer research and in translating scientific discoveries into clinical practice. 

Despite decades of advancement in treatment, cancer spreading to multiple parts of the body remains one of the biggest challenges facing patients and their health care teams.

This is particularly true for osteosarcoma, the most common bone cancer in children and teenagers. While survival rates are approximately 70 per cent for people with localized disease, there is a high risk of metastatic spread to the lungs, after which the odds of survival fall dramatically to 20 per cent or less.

Dr. Poul Sorensen (Molecular Oncology), with co-investigators Dr. Kevin Hay (Terry Fox Laboratory) and Dr. Wei Li (University of Pittsburgh), received a Project Grant from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) for their project titled, “Targeting metabolic vulnerabilities in childhood cancers using immunotherapy.”

Dr. Haifeng Zhang (Molecular Oncology), with the support of Dr. Poul Sorensen as mentor, received a young independent investigator grant from the Rally Foundation for Childhood Cancer Research (Rally). 

The award is tied to a project titled, “Immunotherapeutic targeting of IL1RAP in rare pediatric cancers.”

Rally helps fund all levels of promising research initiatives, from science at the bench to translational, and includes fellows, young investigators and independent investigators.

Congratulations to Dr. Zhang on this achievement!