New Ontario Tumour Bank collection site opens at St. Joseph's Healthcare in Hamilton
A new collection centre at St. Joseph’s Healthcare’s Charlton Campus in Hamilton will help the Ontario Tumour Bank (OTB) provide valuable tissue samples and data to researchers developing new diagnostic tools and drugs to fight cancer.
Dr. Brent Zanke, Vice-President of the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research (OICR) and Director of OTB, and Dr. Ian Rodger, Vice President, Research and Academic and Director of the Father Sean O'Sullivan Research Centre, St. Joseph’s Healthcare, opened the new collection centre at an event in Hamilton on March 10.
“The high-quality samples collected at Ontario Tumour Bank sites across Ontario are a vital tool that cancer researchers rely on to make important new discoveries,” said Dr. Tom Hudson, President and Scientific Director of OICR. “The opening of the Hamilton site at St. Joseph’s will increase the number of samples available to researchers and bring us even closer to finding new treatments for people living with cancer.”
St. Joseph's Healthcare Hamilton is an acute care, teaching and research hospital affiliated with three sites in Hamilton. The collection centre at St. Joseph’s is the first resource of its kind for the hospital, and the only OTB collection centre in Hamilton.
“We are proud to house one of the Ontario Tumour Bank’s collection centres,” Dr. Rodger said. “This is a significant milestone for cancer research in Ontario that has important ramifications in the drive to find new therapies that will benefit cancer patients within our community and beyond.”
A program of the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research, OTB provides academic and industry cancer researchers with a diverse selection of high quality tumour-related specimens and data. Other collection centres for the OTB are located in Kingston, London, Mississauga and Ottawa.
“Organizations like the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research and the Ontario Tumour
Bank are part of the reason Ontario is a global leader in cancer research and a magnet for talent,” said Minister of Research and Innovation John Wilkinson in a news release issued the day of the centre’s opening. “Today’s announcement will help build on this leadership – and create new hope for the future.”
