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Understanding how cancer differs between sexes: A deeper dive

Connie Li
Constance Li, PhD student and researcher in OICR’s Computational Biology program.

In the most comprehensive analysis of whole cancer genomes to date, OICR researchers identify novel sex-linked genomic differences that may be able to predict cancer severity and response to therapy

Cancer differs in males and females but the origins and mechanisms of these differences remain unresolved. A better understanding of sex-linked differences in cancer could lead to more accurate tests and allow sex to be included as a consideration when personalizing treatments for patients.

In a study, published in Nature Communications, OICR’s Constance Li and collaborators identify key genetic characteristics that differ between sexes. Here, Li describes what they found and what this means for patients.

Some studies have already hinted that cancer genomes differ between males and females. What is new about this study?

Previous studies focused on the exomes of patient tumours. That means that they were only looking at a small fraction of the genome that codes for proteins. This study allowed us to look at the entire genome – all of our DNA code – and take a dive deep into many aspects of the disease, like how tumours evolve over time.

By looking at the entire genome and in this ‘dark space’ that we hadn’t explored, we were able to confirm some previous findings but also find new differences between male and female tumour samples.

What sort of differences did you find?

We catalogued the differences we found across nearly 2,000 patient tumours representing more than two dozen different cancer types. Interestingly, we found that biliary cancers – like some liver, gall bladder and bile duct cancers – evolve differently in males than they do in females.

We also found that mutations in the TERT promoter – which is a hot topic in cancer research – occur much more often in men than in women, especially in thyroid cancers.

What does this mean for researchers who are looking into this subject?

Our findings suggest that there are underlying biological differences in the way that male and female tumours begin and progress. Overall, we need to be aware of these differences and consider the sex differences as we develop new tools that can match patients to appropriate treatments.

How else could this be helpful for cancer patients?

These findings are preliminary but powerful. It is important to note that more clinical data and research are needed to validate the differences we found. Ultimately, if we look deeper and find that a cancer progresses along one course in females and a different course in males, we can design roadblocks – or therapies – to stop the cancer along that specific course for that sex.

This paper is part of the Pan-Cancer Analysis of Whole Genomes Project. Read more about the Pan-Cancer project here.

New findings pave the way for future brain cancer research and drug development

The future of brain cancer research

OICR-supported study finds key mechanisms driving a severe form of brain cancer affecting infants and toddlers

When a young child is diagnosed with ependymoma, their treatment options are limited to surgery and radiation therapy – the latter of which causes severe side effects to the developing brain. Despite several clinical trials, scientists have yet to identify life-extending chemotherapies for this type of brain cancer.

In an OICR-supported study recently published in Cell, a research team at The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids) re-examined how scientists have been studying ependymoma and invented new ways to model the disease. Their work has uncovered key mechanisms behind these tumours and new approaches to treat them.

Lead authors Dr. Antony Michealraj and Sachin Kumar, who are both members of Dr. Michael Taylor’s lab, discussed these promising findings with OICR News.

What spurred this research question?

Dr. Antony Michealraj.

AM: Unfortunately, treatment options for young children with ependymoma are very limited. Radiation treatments led to severe side effects and the disease often returns, so we are very motivated to develop new therapies for these infants and toddlers.

Our previous research showed that these brain tumours emerge very early in a child’s development and, remarkably, there are no specific genetic mutations that are known to cause these tumours. Instead, these tumours possess a unique way of regulating what genes are on or off – a unique epigenetic profile.

We observed that patient tumours have an enriched hypoxia (oxygen level) signature which is correlated with poor survival. These unusual scenarios pushed us to study how hypoxia and epigenetics are linked in ependymoma to search for potential solutions.

How did you approach this challenge and what did you find?

AM: The first problem that we faced was the availability of relevant disease models. What we realized was that we could not study the disease unless it was in a very specific environment with fine-tuned oxygen levels. In the body, these cancer cells only grow in low oxygen and we needed to mimic such an environment. Once we did so, we ended up with an exceptional experimental model of ependymoma that nobody has been able to create before.

These models allowed us to study the microenvironment of ependymoma cells. We saw that the cellular metabolism, or how a cell consumes and uses nutrients, was responsible for the epigenetic dysregulation seen in patients. Using an array of metabolic and epigenetic inhibitors, targeting these pathways destroyed ependymomas, providing an avenue for novel therapeutic interventions.  

Sachin Kumar.

SK: One exciting finding was what we call our “Goldilocks” model. The key was histone lysine methylation – a process regulating how DNA is wrapped and coiled in a cell. Ependymoma cells require a very fine balance of histone lysine methylation, and too much or too little results in the cells dying.

By studying how to keep these cells alive, we learned how we could potentially eliminate them. The idea would be to find or repurpose drugs that target these pathways within the body, creating an unfavorable environment and eliminating them for good.

How can we translate these discoveries into new therapies for patients?

SK: With our new knowledge of the key molecular pathways involved in ependymoma, we can now look to develop specific compounds – or potential drugs – that can alter these pathways, disrupt the cancer cell’s environment, and prevent these tumours from growing. These compounds may include drugs that are already in clinical studies or completely new molecules. What’s great is that now we have a model that we can use to screen these drugs more effectively.

AM: We can screen FDA-approved drug libraries on these disease models which will enable us find potential chemotherapies rapidly. Since there are currently no approved medicines that work for this type of brain cancer, if we find a drug that works, it could potentially become the standard of care for this disease around the world.

We hope that these findings pave the way for future therapy development. Although we’re in the very early stages of developing any new drugs, we understand how important this work is to the children and families affected by the disease. We’re committed to finding new solutions for them.

Read more about our achievements in brain cancer research on OICR News.

Q&A with new OICR investigator Dr. Hartland Jackson on the latest in mass cytometry, single-cell imaging and his return to Canada

OICR welcomes Dr. Hartland Jackson back to Toronto as Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute and OICR’s newest investigator

While he was a doctoral student developing experimental models of breast cancer, Dr. Hartland Jackson recognized the enormous potential impact of multiplexed imaging and single-cell technologies. If we could see how different cells interact within a tumour, what could we discover?

This question fueled his research over the last half decade, taking him to Switzerland to develop advanced imaging methods alongside experts at the University of Zurich. Now, returning to Canada, Dr. Jackson plans to collaborate across disciplines and sectors to apply this technology to solve more scientific and clinical questions. Here, he discusses his goal of bringing the benefits of this technology to more patients in Ontario and around the world.

What was your main research focus in Switzerland?

HJ: In a nutshell, I was developing a new technology, called imaging mass cytometry, which allows us to visualize and analyze tumour samples in more detail than ever before.

When I joined the research group at the University of Zurich, they had developed a prototype imaging system. My role was to take this system and be the first to apply it to a clinical problem. Ultimately, I helped shepherd the system from a prototype to a commercial product that is now used around the world.

What clinical application did you focus on?

HJ: I focused on investigating how this technology could help in the diagnosis and prognosis of breast cancer. Through this process, we made a lot of progress in developing analysis methods and optimizing the system. Whereas traditional imaging methods could see three or four markers on a cell, our system allows us to see 40 markers at the same time. With this technology and imaging system, we could visualize how different cells were organized within a sample, which revealed new types of breast cancer.

In addition to this discovery, my work showed that imaging mass cytometry can reveal information within clinical samples – meaning information that may be useful for patients. We pushed the boundary on what can be done with this system and now it’s used around the world to study different human diseases.

Interestingly, the technology that I was working on was an adaptation of an earlier technology developed in Toronto by DVS Sciences, which was supported in part by OICR. My plan was to work with the imaging experts in Switzerland and bring these developments back to the place where the technology was created and is now manufactured as a commercial product by Fluidigm.

Is that what brought you back to Canada?

HJ: Yes, one of the reasons I’ve returned to Canada is to bring this expertise back to Toronto. In addition to that, the research community here is very impressive. The universities, research institutes and hospitals are all tightly knit. This makes for an excellent environment to develop new technologies that can address clinical health challenges. I find that researchers here are like-minded in their goals and collaborative spirit. We enjoy working through technical challenges and delving into the mysteries of cell biology, and – at the same time – working on research that really matters to patients.

What will your future research focus on?

HJ: I plan to continue developing some of the methods that I was working on in Europe while expanding my research in a few exciting areas.

We’re looking to apply this technology to different types of cancer and different diseases in collaboration with clinician scientists. I’m interested in applying this technology in drug clinical trials to help us understand how patients respond to different therapies. In parallel, I look forward to using this technology to study experimental model systems to better understand how cells are communicating with each other and what goes wrong in the communication between cells during cancer development.

Our work has shown what this technology is able to do and that has only opened more avenues for future research. I’m excited because these new applications are now within our reach. To date, collaborations have allowed me to make more progress than I could have ever made on my own and I look forward to building new collaborations to make new discoveries in the future.

Visit Dr. Hartland Jackson’s OICR website page

Mapping the roots of brain cancer

Dr. Hayden Selvadurai, a lead researcher on the project to identify the origins of childhood brain cancer.

OICR-funded researchers pinpoint short-lived cells that give rise to childhood brain tumours

Childhood brain tumours are remarkably complex, but understanding their origins could help researchers develop drugs to eliminate them. Where can these cells be found? How early do they appear? How do they lead to tumours? For Dr. Hayden Selvadurai, these unresolved questions were a call to action.

In a recent study, published in Cell Reports, Selvadurai and collaborators at The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids) discovered a rare type of stem cell that gives rise to medulloblastoma, the most common type of brain cancer in children. Their study shows that these cells arise early in brain development and exist for a brief period of time – a developmental window which scientists can now home in on.

“If we can’t eliminate the stem cells at the root of medulloblastoma, we can’t effectively treat the disease,” says Selvadurai, who was a Postdoctoral Fellow under the supervision of Dr. Peter Dirks while leading this study. Dirks is Head of the Division of Neurosurgery at SickKids, Principal Investigator at The Arthur and Sonia Labatt Brain Tumour Research Centre, Professor at the University of Toronto and Co-leader of OICR’s Brain Cancer Translational Research Initiative (TRI). “These problematic cells arise amid a complex and intricate process of fetal brain development and we were able to pinpoint exactly when that happens.”

The study builds on the research group’s previous publication in Cancer Cell that traced the origins of medulloblastoma growth back to a small group of cells that distinctively expressed the SOX2 gene. Using single-cell RNA sequencing, lineage tracing and advanced imaging techniques, the team showed that these stem cells were responsible for generating all other tumour cells and could give rise to new tumours if not fully eliminated.

“I’m proud of these findings because we were able to unify our knowledge of developmental neurobiology with cancer biology,” says Selvadurai. “We were able to build on our understanding of medulloblastoma growth while improving our experimental models of brain cancer. Together, this work could help the community develop new effective treatments for patients with the disease.”

Dirks’ research group plans to further investigate the genes involved in the early stages of medulloblastoma in collaboration with OICR’s Brain Cancer TRI team.

This study was supported in part by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and OICR through the Stand Up to Cancer (SU2C) Canada Cancer Stem Cell Dream Team.

Q&A with Monique Albert: Ontario’s international leader in biobanking

The Ontario Tumour Bank’s longstanding leader appointed Secretary of International Society for Biological and Environmental Repositories

The International Society for Biological and Environmental Repositories (ISBER) today announced the appointment of Monique Albert as Secretary of the Society’s Board of Directors.

With two decades of experience in research and biobanking and three years of experience on the Society’s Board as Director-at-Large Americas, Albert has been re-elected to the Board into the executive role of Secretary.

In her new position, Albert will lead the maintenance of ISBER by-laws, policies and procedures affecting nearly 1,000 ISBER members who lead hundreds of biobanks around the world. While assuming this role, Albert will continue to serve as Director of the Ontario Tumour Bank at OICR, a position that she has held for more than seven years.

Here, she reflects on her new role and her experiences to date.

How did you become involved in preserving human specimens for research?

MA: I began working directly with human specimens as a researcher in 2001, using cutting-edge technologies to analyze human samples. It was through this experience that I realized the utmost importance of preserving and maintaining the quality of these specimens to generate the most reproducible data. Good biological science is built on good data, which can only come from well-preserved samples.

When I recognized the importance of these invaluable samples, I began developing initiatives to improve biobanking practices at my local research institute. I’ve been building on those initiatives ever since.

Quality is an important aspect of your work. How do you make quality maintenance sustainable?

MA: While sample quality is a key element of a biobank’s success, it is not the only one that matters. To be successful, a biobank needs to meet current and future research needs, comply with standards and regulations, and operate in a sustainable way for future generations. I’m fortunate to have a background in project management and business planning that helps balance these three elements with limited resources.

As biobanking has become more mainstream, I’m proud that Ontario has consistently been at the forefront of biobanking standards. I’ve had the privilege of sharing my work with the growing international biobanking community through presenting at conferences and publishing on several occasions.

What are you looking forward to in your new role as Secretary?

MA: Having plenty of experience with ISBER – and ISBER’s savvy, inclusive and collaborative members – I know we are making an incredible impact on research. I’m honoured to be elected to this role and to continue to volunteer my time for the continued growth of ISBER. My previous experience at ISBER will allow me to hit the ground running and keep the momentum on existing goals and initiatives with the best interests of the Society and its members at heart.

Read more about ISBER’s 2020 Election Results or more on Monique Albert’s active role within ISBER on OICR News.  

Study points to common protein duo as a new therapeutic target for several cancer types

Structure of the RUVBL1 protein. (Credit: Emw / CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0))

Local research group discovers a new way to shut down a pair of cancer-driving proteins, pontin and reptin, using the structure of an FDA-approved drug

Pontin and reptin are proteins that are involved in several cancer-driving mechanisms and play key roles in several diseases, including liver, colorectal, breast, lung and bladder cancers. This makes them a hot target for cancer drug development and discovery efforts. Currently, there is only one drug class that may hold some promise to shut down these proteins, but a Toronto-based team of scientists has recently broken new ground.

Dr. Walid Houry’s Lab at the University of Toronto and OICR’s Drug Discovery group have discovered that pontin and reptin, also known as RUVBL1 and RUVBL2, may be blocked to prevent cancer growth using a chemical similar to the FDA-approved drug, sorafenib. Their findings, which were recently published in Biomolecules, could be a starting point for new and improved cancer drugs based on the approved drug’s structure and function.

Dr. Nardin Nano.

“Through our research, we detangled a large, complex process of interactions between proteins, but what we found was both rewarding and exciting,” says first author Dr. Nardin Nano, who was a PhD student in the Houry Lab while leading the study. “Our findings suggest a new target for cancer treatment and that a new therapy could be within reach.”

This study is part of a larger initiative, led by Nano and members of the Houry Lab, to further describe the function of these proteins in helping cancers grow and invade tissues. With their newfound understanding, the Houry Lab will continue to design and develop molecules similar to sorafenib that can better target pontin and reptin.

“I look forward to future studies that will use this knowledge to better inhibit these proteins in vivo,” says Nano. “Although there is more work to be done, I’m proud that this discovery can help guide future drug development efforts.”

“Given the multiple roles of pontin and reptin in carcinogenesis, it’s not surprising that they are promising drug targets,” says Houry, who is a Professor at the University of Toronto and supported by OICR’s Cancer Therapeutics Innovation Pipeline. “These findings motivate us to continue developing pontin and reptin inhibitors as potential anti-cancer compounds that could – one day – help a number of patients with the disease.”

Unexpected mitochondria activity in leukemia cells gives opening for new treatments

Toronto researchers unravel key cancer-driving circuit between the “powerhouse” and the “brain” of leukemia cells, in big first step for future therapeutic discovery and development

Dr. Dilshad Khan.

Over the last few decades, research has suggested that mitochondria, also known as the “powerhouses of the cell”, play an important role in tumour growth and development, but little is known about how to prevent these cellular machines from wreaking havoc. In a recent study, scientists have discovered a key protein that is made in the “powerhouse of the cell”, unexpectedly affects the expression of genes in the nucleus, or the “brain”, of certain leukemia cells. The study was launched by Dr. Dilshad Khan, who – alongside colleagues in Dr. Aaron Schimmer’s lab at the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre – set out to determine which genes in the mitochondria were essential to the growth and viability of acute myeloid leukemia (AML).

Through genome-wide CRISPR screening and other gene-manipulating techniques, they discovered a key mitochondrial protein that AML cells can’t survive without – MTCH2. Their findings, which were recently published in Blood, may eventually lead to new ways to fight this common and fast-growing form of blood cancer.

“We found that the mitochondrial protein MTCH2 is essential for the growth and survival of AML cells,” says Khan, Postdoctoral Fellow in the Schimmer Lab, who is the first author of the study. “But finding this protein was just one piece of the puzzle. We needed to understand how it worked.”

With Khan’s expertise in epigenetics, the team systematically dissected how MTCH2 affects AML cells. They found that blocking this protein would ultimately cause leukemic stem cells – the difficult-to-treat renewable cells that are thought to be at the root of leukemia – to irreversibly transform into cells that are easier to eliminate with existing chemotherapies.

“Through a series of experiments, we unraveled how MTCH2 affects AML cells and discovered that this protein has a remarkable and unexpected impact on nuclear pathways – it could control nuclear gene expression to affect AML stemness and survival,” says Khan. “We never thought this could happen, but now that we’ve discovered these new links, we could potentially find new ways to control these mechanisms.”

Next, the Schimmer Lab and collaborators plan to investigate MTCH2’s specific mechanism to find where inhibitors – or potential cancer drugs – could block its path. These initiatives will add to Schimmer’s research on dysregulated mitochondrial pathways in leukemia, including his recent work on fat production and copper distribution in leukemic stem cells. This research is funded in part by OICR’s Acute Leukemia Translational Research Initiative and OICR’s Cancer Therapeutics Innovation Pipeline.

“This study showed us that mitochondrial proteins are more interconnected with other cellular networks than we thought,” says Khan. “These fundamental findings have shed light on new research avenues that we can pursue to find new solutions that will hopefully benefit patients with AML.”

New treatment for recurrent pediatric brain cancer enters clinical testing

OICR-supported study helps move promising CAR-T cell therapy into a first-in-child clinical trial

Recurrent brain tumours are some of the most difficult cancers to treat, with no approved targeted therapies available and only a few potential therapies in clinical trials. Developing new drug treatments for these tumours is challenging in part because the drugs must overcome the blood-brain barrier and specifically target cancer cells while sparing the surrounding critical regions of the brain. Scientists at The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids) have discovered a new solution.

In a study, recently published in Nature Medicine, a SickKids-led research team describes a novel treatment approach that delivers chimeric antigen receptor T (CAR-T) cell therapy directly into the cerebrospinal fluid that surrounds the tumour. Their findings show that the approach was effective in treating ependymoma and medulloblastoma, two common types of brain tumours, in experimental mouse models of human disease.

“The vast majority of children with recurrent metastatic medulloblastoma or ependymoma currently have a deadly prognosis, so it is very exciting to think we have identified a novel approach to treat this underserved patient population,” says senior author Dr. Michael Taylor, Neurosurgeon, Senior Scientist in the Developmental and Stem Cell Biology program and Garron Family Chair in Cancer Research at SickKids and Co-lead of OICR’s Brain Cancer Translational Research Initiative.

CAR-T cell therapies, which use genetically engineered immune cells to attack cancer cells, are remarkably effective in treating certain types of lymphomas and leukemias. Whereas CAR-T therapies are typically delivered through the blood stream, the research team discovered that delivering their engineered T cells directly into the cerebrospinal fluid provided a better chance for the therapy to reach and eliminate brain tumours.

The team performed in-depth molecular studies to design CAR-T cells that can recognize specific molecules on the surface of brain tumour cells. They also found that the use of a complementary approved cancer medication, azactyidine, boosts the efficacy of their approach.

Now, building on these findings, collaborators at Texas Children’s Hospital have launched a first-in-child clinical trial to test the safety and anti-tumour efficacy of their new strategy.

“This work was possible thanks to the concerted collaboration of our Pediatric Cancer Dream Team, which brought together scientists studying tumor genomics and tumor immunotherapy around the world to enable the design of more effective therapies for children with incurable and hard to treat cancers,” says corresponding author Dr. Nabil Ahmed, associate professor of pediatrics and immunology, section of hematology-oncology at Baylor and Texas Children’s Hospital.

This research was supported in part by OICR through OICR’s Brain Cancer Translational Research Intitiative and funding provided to the Stand Up to Cancer (SU2C) Canada Cancer Stem Cell Dream Team.

Read SickKids news release.

A message from OICR’s President and Scientific Director, Dr. Laszlo Radvanyi

Dr. Laszlo Radvanyi

I hope that everyone has continued to stay safe and healthy as the world continues to grapple with the risks and challenges presented by COVID-19. The impacts of the pandemic have been felt by individuals and organizations across society, including cancer patients and Ontario’s cancer research community.

While things are obviously not business as usual, I am happy to see OICR’s people rise to the challenge and find solutions to allow us to continue to focus on cancer research while working remotely. My thanks go to OICR’s staff, Board and Scientific Advisory Boards, collaborators and others who have quickly adapted to continue our work as best we can. A big thank you also to our funders at the Ministry of Colleges and Universities for their continued support. We will gradually restore our onsite cancer research activities in a manner that will ensure a safe work environment for all our onsite staff. Our priority remains to improve the lives of those with cancer through research.

OICR’s leadership recognizes that the pandemic has resulted in unprecedented challenges for cancer researchers across Ontario. We have taken steps to ease this burden and are working with OICR-funded researchers and partner organizations to overcome these challenges together. More information about how we are assisting our funded researchers can be found on our website.

Due to our collaborative, cross-disciplinary research strengths, OICR is well-situated to contribute to COVID-19 research. OICR researchers are engaged in numerous projects with others in Ontario and abroad. It has been heartening to see such a swell of collaborative spirit and to see the research community doing what we can to help overcome COVID-19. I invite you to visit our website to learn more about how OICR is doing its part. We are especially cognizant on how these research activities impact cancer patients, as they are an especially vulnerable population at this time.

COVID-19 has disrupted cancer research on a global scale. I look forward to a time when we can resume all of our research activities and once again contribute to the international campaign against cancer at full capacity. During the pandemic, cancer has not and will not cease to be a reality for the thousands of Ontarians living with this disease and their families. Everyone at OICR remains steadfast in our commitment to improve the lives of those facing cancer.

In closing, I offer my deepest appreciation to all those working on the front lines of this crisis and thank all off the members of Ontario’s cancer research community for their continued dedication during this difficult time. All our thoughts also go out to any families that have been affected during this crisis.

Sincerely,
Dr. Laszlo Radvanyi
President and Scientific Director
OICR

Ontario Cancer Research Ethics Board welcomes Natascha Kozlowski as new Executive Director

The province’s oncology-specialized research ethics board honours Janet Manzo’s contributions as she retires and welcomes new Executive Director, Natascha Kozlowski

Since 2006, two years after its inception, Janet Manzo has led the Ontario Cancer Research Ethics Board (OCREB) as Executive Director. Through her tireless commitment to research ethics, she has established OCREB as a leading central research ethics board for the province that is also widely recognized across the country for its innovative model and approach to research ethics. Manzo has recently announced her retirement and joins OCREBs members its Advisory Committee in welcoming Natascha Kozlowski to succeed her as Executive Director.

Kozlowski, who is the former Director of Research at Lakeridge Health, a five-site hospital system serving Durham Region, brings nearly two decades of experience in clinical research to OCREB’s leadership team.

We sat down with Manzo and Kozlowski to discuss changes in research ethics since OCREB was established and OCREB’s next chapter.

How have cancer clinical trials and ethics processes evolved in Ontario since OCREB began?

Janet Manzo, retiring OCREB Executive Director.

Janet Manzo (JM): OCREB was essentially like a start-up. When it was created, there was no model like it in Canada. OCREB has radically changed the research ethics environment for multi-centre cancer trials in Ontario. Today, OCREB enables research by streamlining the review process, minimizing redundancy in hospitals across Ontario, promoting consistency, and saving time and costs by serving as a specialized, consolidated committee for ethics reviews.

Looking back over these years, it’s clear that cancer clinical trials have become more complex. For example, we’ve seen new and innovative study designs, more and more thorough consent forms, more frequent inclusion of quality-of-life assessments, and increases in biologic specimen collection for biomarker development, genetic testing and future research. I’m grateful to have had the opportunity to lead OCREB operations for more than fourteen years, a period of constant growth and change, leading to a successful and well-respected model of ethics review for multi-centre cancer research.

Natascha Kozlowski (NK): From my experience as the Director of Research at a large hospital, I witnessed – on the ground level – how OCREB positively impacts cancer research at hospitals. I can attest that OCREB has helped improve research ethics processes at sites across Ontario while enabling life-saving, ethically-sound clinical research.

How does OCREB adapt to changes in cancer clinical trials?

JM: For research ethics boards, the increasing complexity of clinical trials means it is more important than ever to stay current and to have the right expertise around the table, such as experts in pathology or genetics. OCREB has and will continue to evolve as new cancer technologies and clinical trial designs emerge.

NK: To echo Janet: new clinical trial designs bring new ethical considerations to the table. I think Janet has set up a tremendous organization with a great network of support – OICR included – that can continue evolving to enable innovative research.

JM: I’d like to thank all of the OCREB staff, advisors and members for their unfailing support and for their steadfast dedication to the protection of research participants. I will miss everyone but I am confident that OCREB is in good hands.

What does the future hold for OCREB? What are you looking forward to the most?

NK: OCREB has a strong history of excellence in the clinical trial environment, often being consulted as a respected source of ethics guidance. I look forward to working with our Members and Advisory Committee in the years to come to uphold and strengthen OCREB’s reputation while advancing cancer research.

I would like to express my sincerest thanks to Janet Manzo for many years of dedication and leadership in building an outstanding research ethics board. Over the years, Janet has earned the trust and respect of OCREB’s many members – including clinicians, researchers, ethicists, privacy experts, and community members – while serving Ontario’s cancer research hospitals and centres. I wish Janet all the best as she begins her retirement.

Learn more about OCREB.