Dedicated completely to Northwestern Ontario, the NCRF provides funding to improve the research and successful collaborations with other leading centres, treatment, and patient education and awareness. With the grants provided, the cancer program can enhance service through new treatment and diagnostic equipment, and create social marketing campaigns to increase awareness around diseases like colorectal and prostate cancer. “In the more than ten years since the NCRF was created, the cancer research program has grown exponentially,” said Glenn Craig, President and CEO of the NCRF. “We provided the initial funding for the research wet lab at the cancer centre in 1997, stimulating the interest and activity in cancer research in our region. This growth has enabled us to attract the calibre of scientists like Dr. Zehbe. We are pleased to contribute $215,000 towards her research, in hopes that it brings her team closer to their goals.”

Dr. Ingeborg Zehbe joined the cancer centre research team nearly a year ago from Mainz, Germany, where she had developed an area of expertise in the field of tumour biology. Her primary focus falls to the study of the Human Papilloma Virus (HPV), the prime risk factor in cervical cancer. She, along with her local co-authors Dr. Nick Escott, and Dr. Glen Holloway, at the Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre (TBRHSC) are concentrating on studying cervical cancer caused by HPV. One of the bases of their study is that a strong immune system is essential to fight micro-organisms, disease, and cancer. Taking it a step further, they are focusing their study on the production of a type of proteins, called cytokines, in women who are treated for abnormal PAP smears. “My focus has been on HPV for a number of years now,” stated Dr. Zehbe. “With this funding from the NCRF, we have begun a control group of blood samples from women attending the colposcopy lab under the care of Dr. Holloway and Dr. Escott. With these contributing results, we can determine, with all factors equal, why some women develop cervical cancer and some do not.”

ICR Discoveries is only one of the partnerships that the cancer centre and TBRHSC continues to establish and pursue. In the past few years, provincial, national, and global partnerships have been established and proposed, with most evolving through the research pillar of the cancer program. “Our research program continues to explore unique opportunities for teaching, research, and education; especially in light of the way our system is changing the way we treat people,” said Michael Power, Vice President of Regional Cancer and Diagnostics. “Over the last five years, our research scientists have secured nearly five million dollars in local and national grant funding, establishing a distinct foundation for cancer research growth and development.”