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Wave of medical imaging innovation hits shores of Lake Superior

Collaboration with OICR and capital from FACIT contributing to a growing hub of medical imaging research in Thunder Bay.

When Sasha Bubon arrived in Thunder Bay in January 2010 to begin his master’s studies in physics at Lakehead University, he was starting a whole new chapter personally and scientifically.  

The small Northwestern Ontario city on the shores of Lake Superior is more than 7,500 kilometres from Bubon’s hometown of Kyiv, Ukraine and his master’s topic was a world away from his undergraduate degree in engineering and computer science.

But Bubon was drawn to the community because, in a way, Thunder Bay was also starting its own new chapter scientifically. Physicist Dr. Alla Reznik had recently moved to the city as a Canada Research Chair in Physics of Radiation Medical Imaging (based at Lakehead) and Senior Scientist at the Thunder Bay Regional Health Research Institute (TBRHRI). Since arriving, she had been building the infrastructure needed to study imaging technologies and recruiting talented people from the local community and internationally – including Bubon.

Dr. Sasha Bubon

“When I first met with Dr. Reznik, I didn’t know anything about Thunder Bay or about medical imaging,” Bubon recalls. “But coming to Thunder Bay allowed me to study in a multimillion-dollar lab, with professors who were experts in the field, and I was able to adjust pretty quickly.”

Thirteen years later, Reznik and Bubon have brought a locally developed imaging technology for breast cancer to the cusp of clinical impact and led the emergence of a hub for medical imaging research in Thunder Bay. Their state-of-the-art low-dose Positron Emission Mammography (LD-PEM) system, also called organ-targeted Radialis PET (Positron Emission Tomography) camera is five times faster and 10 times more sensitive than other PET scanners on the market or in clinical trials. This drove them to launch Radialis Inc., a Thunder Bay-based start-up.

Thanks to strong local partnerships, an investment grant from FACIT and research collaboration with OICR, Radialis’ PET system has been approved by regulators and is in use at a major Toronto hospital. And now an exciting clinical trial is making the locally developed technology available to eligible patients in Thunder Bay.

Harnessing strong collaborations and radiation imaging

Reznik came to Thunder Bay with extensive experience studying medical imaging techniques in both academia and industry, most of which was acquired in Toronto. Northwestern Ontario didn’t have all the complex infrastructure she needed to do her research at the time, but she quickly met like-minded people and started building capacity through collaboration.

In 2011, American physicist Dr. Mitchell Albert joined Lakehead and TBRHRI, bringing his own extensive experience with innovative medical imaging techniques. The two became regular collaborators and expanded the local technological assets required to continue advancing their cutting-edge research.

Dr. Alla Reznik

“Though the logistics of our research are a bit more complicated from Thunder Bay,” Reznik says, “with the right people you can develop realistic goals and methodologies to reach them.”

One of Reznik’s primary goals was to harness positron emission tomography (PET) to improve breast cancer screening and diagnosis. PET is a molecular imaging technique where radioactive ‘tracers’ are injected into the body and accumulate in a target tumor or attach to specific abnormal cells. Clinicians can then use imaging technology to view the tracers and pinpoint the location of tumours.

Reznik’s lab designed an imaging technology that is faster and more sensitive than existing PET technologies, helping spot small tumours while requiring less radiation. Their system also adjusts to the patient, rather than the other way around. For breast cancer screening, that means imaging can be done much more comfortably for patients, without having to compress the breast as with traditional mammogram technologies. It’s also better at detecting tumours in dense breast tissue, which can sometimes mask tumours in x-rays and ultrasounds.

Their innovation resulted in a clinical PEM system designed in Thunder Bay and developed with the help of local scientists and manufacturers. They then created Radialis in 2016 to help move their technology into the clinic.   

“Our technology demonstrated a capability to advance the field of breast cancer detection beyond the current standard of care,” says Reznik, who serves as Chief Scientific Officer for Radialis. “I am also sure that we will not be limited to breast cancer and there will be significant improvements in other areas of healthcare including other forms of cancer and neurodegenerative diseases.”

From start-up to the next generation

A year after launching, Radialis received a major boost when it was awarded an investment grant from FACIT’s Prospects Oncology Fund.

“We were immediately impressed with the Radialis team and their innovation’s enormous potential to transform breast cancer screening,” says Dr. David O’Neill. “Dr. Reznik and colleagues are building something special in Thunder Bay and FACIT is proud to support a new, emerging hub in the northwest of this province.”

The Prospects Fund supports early-stage studies in Ontario universities and start-ups. It allowed Radialis to finish assembly of their prototype, validate the technology and get Health Canada approval to begin first-in-human testing.

“The Prospects Fund played an instrumental role in propelling Radialis forward while also acknowledging the company’s immense potential, Reznik says.

Following clinical trials at Princess Margaret Cancer Centre (PM) in Toronto, the company announced it received FDA clearance to market its organ-targeted PET Imager in the United States. The PEM prototype is already in clinical use at PM and Radialis facilities have been set up to manufacture it on a larger scale and sales are underway. Going forward, it will be important to gather more clinical data and gauge market interest to help garner further investment.

Reznik and Radialis are also hard at work on the next generation of imaging tools, thanks in part to her close ties with OICR’s Imaging Program. Reznik partnered with the program’s Co-Director Dr. Aaron Fenster to develop a robotic arm that can be mounted and integrated with the PEM system, harnessing its high-resolution images to make biopsies more precise and less invasive. That system has been through laboratory testing and validation and will soon be tested in the clinic.

In October 2022, Reznik received a Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) grant in collaboration with Fenster to develop a PET imaging system for prostate cancer. She also received an OICR Senior Investigator Award in July.

Improving local access to local innovations

Though Radialis has connections across Ontario, Reznik’s relationship with the Thunder Bay community remains critically important. She has prioritized local design and testing whenever possible, despite the challenges of being located several hundreds of kilometers from the nearest major city.

But until recently, all clinical trials for Reznik’s molecular imaging technologies have been based in larger cities like Toronto, where the large population and available resources often make it easier to run trials and attract patients.

Reznik had always wanted to run a trial locally, and she got an extra push when a couple of locals approached her privately about being part of an earlier trial. She was able to arrange for them to travel to Toronto to participate but found herself wondering why people should have to be sent to Toronto for a technology that was developed in Thunder Bay.

Working closely with clinicians at Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre, she planned a clinical trial that will use Radialis’ PEM system to monitor patients after they receive chemotherapy for breast cancer. Her highly sensitive system should provide valuable information about whether chemotherapy is working for a particular patient, while patients who aren’t responding can be directed to other treatment options.

“We’re very proud to be starting this trial locally in the Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre, where we have a very strong oncology community,” Reznik says. “And we’re excited for how it could unlock the future of personalized medicine for breast cancer.”

Imaging opens new horizons for the community

The future of imaging research in Thunder Bay is looking bright. Reznik is also advancing other projects focused on low-dose x-ray technologies, while Albert is running his own studies on a potentially transformative new imaging technology for a variety of diseases that uses depolarized xenon as a tracer.

Dr. Mitchell Albert

“We spent many years blazing pathways to build the infrastructure for medical imaging research in Thunder Bay and these are the fruits of our collective labour,” Albert says.

Both Reznik and Albert have been able to hire students from their labs directly after graduation, which they say is hugely important to the research, the students and the larger community.

Research benefits from having the same highly trained professionals stay on with the project instead of having to bring new people up to speed. Students who grew up in Thunder Bay benefit from the option to stay in their hometown while still working on cutting-edge innovations, and students who come from abroad can remain in their adopted home. And the community benefits from new jobs and the influx and retention of talent.

“I really appreciate Thunder Bay because it is a place where I can make a difference and open up new horizons for students and the community,” Reznik says.

Thirteen years after arriving as a student, Bubon is now well-established in the local community. He completed his master’s degree and PhD, was hired as Associate Scientist at TBRHRI and Chief Technology Officer at Radialis. He also purchased a house, further planting his roots in Thunder Bay.

“This community has been really friendly and welcoming,” Bubon says. “I came here as an unknown person from Ukraine and have been able to contribute to very interesting science that we hope will save lives and improve outcomes for every patient that comes through the healthcare system.”

Ask a Cancer Researcher: How does blood change as we age?

Dr. Kimberley Skead answers a question from the public.

Blood touches every single one of our organs as it travels through our bodies, and so it can often provide early signs that something isn’t right.

In our latest Ask a Cancer Researcher, Dr. Kimberley Skead answers a question from Matt about how our blood changes as we age, and what that means for predicting, diagnosing and treating disease like cancer.

See Skead’s full answer in the video above, and considering submitting your own question for a chance to be featured in our next video.

New OICR investigator combines physics, chemistry, and artificial intelligence to improve tissue imaging

Dr. Chenxi Qian has developed an advanced vibrational spectroscopy technique that delivers fast, high-resolution and label-free imaging.

Dr. Chenxi Qian is excited to take advanced concepts from physics and chemistry and apply them to real-life problems.

Qian is a physicist and chemist who specializes in vibrational spectroscopy, a method for measuring the chemical bonds of different molecules. Though one type of vibrational spectroscopy – known as ‘infrared’ – has some well-known applications in health science, Qian’s specialty – known as ‘Raman spectroscopy’ – isn’t well-known by your average clinician.

But Qian hopes to change that. The Raman method he developed has the potential to be a faster and more accurate tool to scan tissue samples for diseases like cancer.

“In healthcare, patients can’t afford to wait a long time for scans to tell them a diagnosis or prognosis,” Qian says. “We want to bring clinicians a new tool to help them deliver personalized medicine.”

Originally from China, Qian did his undergraduate studies Nanjing University before moving to Canada to earn his PhD in chemistry from the University of Toronto. Qian’s interest in spectroscopy led him south of the border to the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), where he did his postdoctoral fellowship. Now, he has come back to Canada to become Assistant Professor of Medical Biophysics at the University of Toronto and to start his own lab at Sunnybrook Hospital.

Earlier this year, Qian received an OICR Early Career Investigator Award to support research into his innovative imaging method. OICR News recently asked him about his method, and about what drives him as a scientist.

When did you know that you wanted to become a scientist?

I was interested in science from a very young age. When I was in elementary school, we would sometimes give speeches to the class. My speeches were usually about physics or chemistry – I would learn some advanced, abstract concept and then teach it to my classmates. Then, in high school, I decided I wanted to become a scientist and a professor.

Were you also interested in healthcare early on?

That interest didn’t come until later. My graduate studies were in physics and chemistry. Then during my postdoctoral fellowship at Caltech, I focused mainly on a method based on nonlinear vibrational spectroscopy called ‘stimulated Raman scattering imaging’.

Raman microscopy is an imaging technique that has been used for many years in different fields, but I believe its future lies in healthcare. With recent advances, it can help create a 3D image of the components of a particular sample, and that can be very useful in healthcare, and especially in cancer.

Also, like many people, I have a personal connection to cancer. When I was very young, I lost my grandfather to lung cancer. He was very dear to me. I believe this was a signal to me that I should use my knowledge to contribute to cancer research.

What exactly is vibrational spectroscopy and what makes it effective for imaging in healthcare?

Vibrational spectroscopy is a way to visualize the molecules in a sample by probing their molecular vibration. Each chemical bond within molecules has a specific vibrational frequency, whether the molecules are proteins or lipids or something else.

The advantage of this imaging technique in healthcare is that it is label-free. The current standard for tissue samples is histology, where dyes are used to stain the sample. Sometimes that staining process is very long and troublesome and doesn’t allow for quantification. The Raman imaging method we use can achieve very high resolution without the labeling process and all that comes with it.

You have developed an innovative technique for Raman imaging in healthcare. Can you tell us more about that?

In the lab I’m building at Sunnybrook, we use an advanced form of Raman imaging called ‘simulated Raman scattering imaging’. I contributed to advancing this technique at Caltech with my colleagues and supervisors. We created a way to enhance the Raman signal to achieve high-resolution, high-throughput imaging. We are also combining this with machine learning methods, so that we can get an even faster throughput.

We are currently building our machine. When we’re done, we want to bring it to clinicians so they can have faster, label-free imaging to support personalized medicine.   

What excites you about the potential of this technique?

A lot of physicists and chemists come up with a method, and then leave it to others to worry about its application. But I am taking the opportunity to work on the application of our method myself, because I believe it can be very valuable in healthcare. I’ve also had the opportunity to talk to many clinicians about my method. They also think it could be useful to them, and that’s very exciting to me.

New member of executive team will strengthen OICR’s commitment to patients, equity and impact

Dr. Rebecca Tamarchak joins OICR’s executive team after eight years with the organization.

OICR is excited to welcome Dr. Rebecca Tamarchak to its executive team, a move that will help the institute realize its commitment to partnering with a diverse community of cancer researchers, patients and other groups to make cutting-edge advances in cancer diagnosis, detection, treatment and prevention.

Tamarchak takes on the role of Head of Strategy, Governance and Partnerships, overseeing a broad range of OICR activities to set and achieve OICR’s strategic goals.

Since joining OICR in 2015, Tamarchak has served as Director and then Senior Director of Strategy and Governance. In these roles, she led the roll out of new strategic initiatives, developed new systems to measure and report on OICR’s impact, stewarded the drafting of institutional reports and strategic plans, and implemented new approaches to engage patients, academics and other partners.

Now, as part of the executive team, her expanded duties include overseeing OICR’s patient partnership and equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI) activities. She will take on a leadership role in facilitating OICR’s interactions with the Ontario government, working closely with government and other OICR partners to bring research discoveries to patients who need them. She will work closely with other members of the executive team to help develop more collaborations with public and private organizations nationally and internationally to maximize OICR’s health and economic impact.

“Rebecca has been an essential part of OICR’s success and growth over the past eight years, and has consistently been an outstanding performer,” says OICR President and Scientific Director Dr. Laszlo Radvanyi. “We are excited to now have her on the executive team, where her talents and experience can make an even greater impact on OICR’s vision of cancer solved together.”

Before joining OICR, Tamarchak held several senior roles in the healthcare and not-for-profit sectors. She has a Bachelor of Science from Concordia University and a PhD in Cell Biology and Immunobiology from Yale University.

Tamarchak says she looks forward to learning from her colleagues on OICR’s executive and applying her diverse experience.  

“I am very excited to be joining the executive team and playing a bigger role in steering the institute’s success and impact,” she says.

The Next Generation: Jingping Qiao

PhD Student studying the complexity of breast cancer to try and impact treatment.

About one in eight Canadian women will develop breast cancer in their lifetime. But how their cancer progresses can depend on what types of cells their tumour is made of.

Jingping Qiao is a PhD student at the University of Toronto based in OICR’s Computational Biology Program. She is studying the complex molecular makeup of breast cancer tumours in the hopes of finding better ways to diagnose and treat them.

“I hope my project helps clinicians make more informed decisions that lead to more personalized treatment plans that offer better outcomes,” Qiao says.

Find out more in Qiao’s The Next Generation video.

Ask a Cancer Researcher: How can we predict if breast cancer will come back?

OICR Co-Director of Diagnostic Development Dr. Melanie Spears answers a question from a patient.

What are the chances my cancer will come back? It’s a question on the mind of just about every person undergoing cancer treatment.

There are several tests and tools that doctors use to predict if cancer will recur. And at OICR, we are working on developing new tests to accurately measure the risk of recurrence.

In our latest Ask a Cancer Researcher video, OICR Co-Director of Diagnostic Development, Dr. Melanie Spears, discusses some of the tools used to predict breast cancer recurrence, in response to a question from patient partner Koko Bate Agborsangaya.

Watch the video below and consider submitting your own question to be answered by one of OICR’s expert researchers.

New network to give improved options to Ontarians with hereditary cancers

The Ontario Hereditary Cancer Research Network will drive research into cancers caused by inherited genetic mutations.

Even as a teenager, long before she knew what a genetic mutation was, Katie Lark was pretty sure she would face cancer someday.

Her grandmother died of ovarian cancer decades earlier, and Katie knew cancer sometimes runs in the family. She also watched her aunt get treatment for ovarian and breast cancer and witnessed the huge challenges that came with it.

Katie Lark

“It was always in the back of my mind, even though I never really talked about it,” Katie says.

But that knowledge didn’t make it easier when Katie’s aunt and father both tested positive for an inherited mutation in the BRCA1 gene that increases the risk of certain cancers.

And it didn’t ease the shock when Katie, at 25 years old, also tested positive for the same BRCA1 mutation and was told she had up to an 80 per cent chance of developing breast cancer and a 60 per cent chance of ovarian cancer.

“Imagine being 25 years old and finding that out,” Katie says. “I was pretty freaked out.”

About 10 per cent of all cancers are caused by mutations passed down from parents to children. They are called hereditary cancers.

Advancements in genetic testing have helped many Ontarians find out about their risk of hereditary cancers. But access to the 20 different clinics in Ontario that do genetic testing for hereditary cancer can vary depending on where you live in the province. And what to do once you know you inherited a cancer-causing mutation isn’t always clear.

The data generated from genetic testing also creates a huge opportunity for research into how to prevent, detect and treat hereditary cancers. But in Ontario, that data is stored in several different unconnected databases, so it can be difficult to get a full picture of all hereditary cancers across the province.

To Dr. Raymond Kim, a medical geneticist, Ontario is long overdue to break down these data siloes.

“Ontario needs one place to gather data on all people with hereditary cancer so that we can connect people with the right services and research new ways to manage these cancers,” says Kim, who practices at the University Health Network, Mount Sinai Hospital and SickKids.

Kim shared this vision with different stakeholders over the past few years, including OICR President and Scientific Director Dr. Laszlo Radvanyi. They ultimately decided that OICR, as the province’s cancer research institute, was the ideal ‘honest broker’ to unify the hereditary cancer community in Ontario. Then, in 2021, Kim and OICR announced plans to build the Ontario Hereditary Cancer Research Network (OHCRN), an Ontario-wide registry for all carriers of hereditary cancer.

Two years later, the OHCRN project is off and running. The network is currently working with OICR’s Genome Informatics team to build the registry and ensure it meets the highest standards of data security. The network expects to begin collecting data from Ontarians in 2025.

For Kim, who is one of Ontario’s leading hereditary cancer researchers, OHCRN will be an invaluable resource. Access to province-wide data about all types of hereditary cancers will drive game-changing research into some of the biggest questions in hereditary cancer.

That includes studying why some people with cancer-causing genes end up developing cancer, and why some don’t. The answer could inform new ways to treat hereditary cancers or stop them before they start.

Researchers can also use this data to find the best ways to screen people for the many different types of cancer that are hereditary. While a mammogram can screen for breast cancer and an MRI could look for other types of cancer, there is no unified way to screen people with cancer-causing genes for all cancers they could develop.

“Many scientists, including several at OICR, are exploring whether blood tests for cancer – sometimes referred to as ‘liquid biopsies’ – could be a valuable tool,” Kim says.

What researchers learn from OHCRN data also has implications beyond hereditary cancers, Kim says. That’s because many cancer-causing genes are not inherited at birth. Sometimes genetic mutations happen later in life, for different reasons. But the cancers that develop from these mutations are treated largely in the same way, whether hereditary or not.

“That’s why hereditary cancers have been called the Rosetta Stone of all cancers,” Kim says. 

Though he’s excited by the opportunities OHCRN creates for research, Kim says the goal of the OHCRN project is ultimately to connect and support patients as soon as possible.

“It’s all about patients for me, and especially those that are outside of big cities like Toronto,” he says. “It excites me that we can bring them into an Ontario-wide community and improve their standard of clinical care.”

As a genetic counsellor in Orillia, Lauren Hughes witnessed how challenging it can be for people with hereditary cancer in smaller communities. She would often have to direct patients to Toronto to access services.

Lauren Hughes

“I simply didn’t have the same resources available to my patients that my colleagues in bigger cities did,” Hughes said. “They might have to travel for their screening or treatment, or if they wanted to participate in a clinical trial.”

That experience motivated Hughes to join OHCRN as Program Manager in September 2021. She has since helped lay the groundwork for the network and bring different stakeholders on board. One of the most important early steps was building strong relationships with the existing hereditary cancer infrastructure across the province. The project now has collaborators at all of Ontario’s 20 hereditary cancer clinics and all nine of the molecular laboratories that test for hereditary cancer, which is where most OHCRN data will come from initially.

As the project progresses, OHCRN will launch its own online portal where people with hereditary cancers can register and provide consent for OHCRN to access data from their clinical and lab reports. Once they are part of the network, people will have access to information about cancer screening programs and clinical trials that may be appropriate for them.

“We’re trying to give that power back to people with hereditary cancer to be able to self-identify and advocate for themselves,” Hughes says.

The results of Katie Lark’s genetic test, while extremely difficult to hear, gave her the chance to make proactive decisions about her health. Yet she was left with a difficult choice: have surgery to remove her breasts and reproductive organs before they could develop cancer or get regular tests and scans and wait to see if cancer developed.

She ultimately decided to have a double mastectomy at 27 and a full hysterectomy and salpingo-oophorectomy at 30. And while she is proud to have taken preventative action against hereditary cancer, she wishes things could have been easier.

“I want there to be better options for patients like me,” says Katie, who is now working with OHCRN as a patient partner. “Ten years from now, I hope people aren’t faced with the same tough choices.”

The secret to stopping deadly cancer recurrences may be in your blood

OICR-supported clinical trials are using blood tests to find cancer recurrence early and inform personalized treatment strategies.


Since being diagnosed with triple-positive breast cancer at the age of 40, Adina Isenberg has been poked, prodded, sliced and scanned.

She has had surgery, radiation, hormone therapy, 12 rounds of chemotherapy and even a targeted therapy to overcome the HER2+ genetic mutation that made her tumour extra aggressive.

And while her treatment was successful and she is cancer-free more than five years later, she can never fully put cancer behind her.

“Every cancer survivor I know is afraid of recurrence,” says Isenberg. “And that includes me.”

Despite advancements in treating cancer that have helped shrink tumours and extended people’s lives, recurrence remains a major challenge. Traces of cancer can live on – often undetectable – after treatment, and then come back even stronger than before.

In the case of diseases like HER2+ breast cancer, which makes up almost one fifth of all breast cancers, recurrence is often deadly.

But what if there was a way to find those lingering traces of cancer so that patients could be treated before recurrence took hold? And what if all it took was a blood test?

“Most people who have had cancer are used to getting poked a lot for different tests,” says Isenberg. “Having one more test to alleviate some uncertainty would do wonders for patients’ mental health.”

OICR is determined to give cancer patients that certainty. The Institute is supporting several trials, through the Clinical Acceleration Team Awards (CATA) funding program, that are exploring if blood tests can detect early signs of cancer recurrence and point people to the best treatment to stop it.

Seeing invisible signs of cancer recurrence

Dr. David Cescon

Isenberg is a patient partner for one of these CATA-supported clinical trials. Led by Dr. David Cescon, a medical oncologist and clinician scientist at University Health Network (UHN), the trial is testing whether adding targeted drug called neratinib to a HER2+ breast cancer patient’s standard-of-care treatment after surgery can slow a potential recurrence.

Neratinib has already proven effective against HER2+ breast cancer. Although it is one of several HER2-targeting drugs, it is not commonly used in current treatment regimens. That’s why Cescon and colleagues are harnessing an innovative blood test for circulating tumour DNA (ctDNA) to identify which patients neratinib will work best for.

ctDNA is tiny pieces of a tumour’s genetic material that can sometimes be found in a person’s blood stream. These fragments are often present when all other signs of cancer are gone. And research shows that, when ctDNA is detectable after cancer treatment has been completed, it’s likely that cancer will recur.

In Cescon’s study, participants who’ve already had surgery for HER2+ breast cancer will get a ctDNA blood test. That test will be personalized to their tumour’s own unique fingerprint, based on the tissue sample that was taken when they were first diagnosed with cancer. Patients whose blood shows signs of residual disease will have neratinib added to their standard treatment, and follow-up blood tests will be used to see how the experimental combination is working.

The trial was initiated at UHN at the end of 2022. Cescon and colleagues are screening patients in Toronto and working to set up sites in Ottawa and in other hospitals across Ontario.

“The idea here is to use ctDNA to specifically identify individuals for whom the standard of care treatment isn’t enough,” says Cescon. “We want to find who is likely to have their cancer recur and tackle that risk of recurrence in a personalized way with the goal of achieving cure.”

Finding resistance for personalized treatment

Dr. Stephanie Lheureux

Dr. Stephanie Lheureux’s OICR-funded CATA clinical trial makes use of a blood test for ‘cell-free DNA’ – which are fragments of DNA in the bloodstream that don’t necessarily come from a tumour – to guide treatment at the time of recurrence.

In an earlier OICR-funded study, Lheureux and colleagues showed that you may use cell-free DNA to identify people for whom certain ovarian cancer treatments just won’t work. Ovarian cancer will recur in about 70 per cent of patients. Even targeted treatments like PARP inhibitors aren’t always effective. Working with OICR’s Dr. Trevor Pugh, Lheureux and colleagues sequenced the genome of samples of cell-free DNA and were able to find some mechanisms that make people resistant to PARP inhibitors.

Now, Lheureux and colleagues are using that knowledge to guide real-time treatment decisions. Participants in their CATA-funded clinical trial will receive PARP inhibitors alongside another type of cancer drug called ‘angiogenesis inhibitors.’ At the same time, they’ll have blood and tissue samples taken and tested for PARP inhibitor resistance.

People who don’t have the mechanism of PARP inhibitor resistance will continue with the original two treatments with potentially an immunotherapy added. People whose test shows they are resistant will stop PARP inhibitors and instead get chemotherapy with immunotherapy added to their angiogenesis inhibitor. Blood tests will be used throughout to monitor the progress of their treatment.

“Our goal is to act on our knowledge about resistance to PARP inhibitors and use these findings to guide treatment early,” says Lheureux, who is Clinician Investigator and Medical Oncologist Site Lead (Gynecology Oncology) at Princess Margaret Cancer Centre. “This trial is very innovative using real-time genomic data from tumour DNA and cell-free DNA to potential adapt treatment strategy.”

Moving from tissue samples to ‘liquid biopsies’

These kinds of specialized blood tests are often called ‘liquid biopsies’ because they can help detect and diagnose cancer like traditional biopsies but without having to surgically remove a piece of tissue. They’re among the most exciting new developments in cancer because it’s a much easier experience for patients to give blood than provide tissue samples. That means patients can be tested regularly for signs of cancer with minimal inconvenience.

ctDNA testing is also critical to a CATA-funded study led by Dr. Natasha Leighl that is investigating recurrence in lung cancer. Patients in her trial whose blood test suggests their lung cancer is likely to recur after surgery will receive a combination of chemotherapy and immunotherapy. Then ctDNA blood tests will help monitor their progress over time.

These potentially practice-changing clinical trials using cutting-edge biomarkers are exactly what OICR hand in mind when it created the CATA awards. Part of OICR’s Clinical Translation Pathway, the awards are aimed at bringing new cancer diagnostics and therapies to patients through clinical trials and making sure they are effective.

“There are so many exciting innovations coming from Ontario researchers that can revolutionize how cancer is detected, diagnosed and treated,” says Dr. Teresa Petrocelli, OICR’s Director of Clinical Translation. “OICR is committed to bringing these discoveries to the patients who need them, and we are proud to support researchers who share our commitment.”

More than five years after her breast cancer diagnosis, Isenberg says that one of the biggest reasons she’s still here today is that her cancer was detected early.

She is grateful for all the people, tools and treatments that contributed to her positive outcome with cancer. That’s why she decided to give back as a patient partner in cancer research – to give all people with cancer the same hope she was given.

“When a patient hears the word cancer, we hear ‘death sentence’,” Isenberg says. “To have more options to help save lives, or even to prolong lives in a quality way, is critically important.” 

The Next Generation: Aisha Naamani

Drug Discovery trainee driven to reverse negative trends in colorectal cancer.

With more and more young adults being diagnosed with colorectal cancer, Aisha Naamani wants to provide better ways to treat the disease.


Naamani is a Ph.D. student on OICR’s Drug Discovery team, supervised by Dr. Rima Al-awar. She is working to validate potential therapeutic targets for colorectal cancer, which she hopes could one day lead to new therapeutic options.


“I hope that this research adds to our general understanding of the disease,” Naamani says. “I also hope this could pave the way for translating basic research into clinical practice and benefiting patients.”


Born in Oman, Naamani also wants to help develop the field of cancer research in the Middle East.
“I’m eager to take part of that development and contribute to the scientific community,” she says.
Find out more by watching Naamani’s The Next Generation video.

Cancer researchers focused on bringing new discoveries to patients get two-year funding awards

OICR is supporting six research teams through its Innovation to Implementation (I2I) funding competition.

June 14, 2023, TORONTO – Funding announced today by the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research (OICR) will help six Ontario-based research teams pursue their ultimate goal of improving the lives of people with cancer.

Funding comes through OICR’s Innovation to Implementation (I2I) program, which aims to help ensure new discoveries about preventing, diagnosing and treating cancer are adopted into healthcare policy and clinical practice.

“Every cancer researcher wants their work to have an impact on patients, but there are a lot of challenges that must be overcome before a promising idea in the lab can have a meaningful impact in the clinic,” says Dr. Christine Williams, OICR’s Executive Vice President and Head of Implementation Science. “That’s why OICR is proud to support these talented Ontario researchers bring potentially life-changing innovations to the people who need them.”

“It’s very exciting to see OICR fund these projects,” says Carol Gordon, a member of OICR’s Patient and Family Advisory Council who helped review I2I applications. “They all address important topics from a patient’s perspective, including personalized medicine, accessible genetic testing, quality of life and patient engagement.”

First launched in 2022, I2I awards support the uptake of new cancer tools and knowledge for the benefit of cancer patients. The awards are part of OICR’s Implementation Science program, which emphasizes ways to assess, test and implement research discoveries into Ontario’s healthcare system.

“The Ontario government is committed to advancing new discoveries in cancer research by supporting entrepreneurs who have developed innovative technologies, treatments and tools to help cancer patients,” said Jill Dunlop, Minister of Colleges and Universities. “These six projects all have the potential to improve cancer patients’ lives, by providing personalized care and treatments, and by making genetic testing faster and more accessible to all Ontarians.”

The six research projects funded as part of the 2023 I2I awards will receive up to a total of $200,000 each over the next two years. They include investigations into new tools to diagnose cancer, new approaches to evaluate emerging cancer technologies and ways to ensure all communities have access to new discoveries.

Dr. David Berman of Queen’s University created a system to objectively grade bladder cancer so that it can be treated more effectively. ‘High-grade’ and ‘low-grade’ bladder cancers are treated very differently, but the process to determine grading is highly subjective. Expert pathologists will disagree on cancer grades in 20 to 40 per cent of cases. With I2I funding, Berman and colleagues will test a computer-aided grading system for bladder cancer based on quantitative measures and work with industry, academic and patient partners to help it make it available to clinicians.

“Having an objective, quantitative way to grade bladder cancers will help urologists provide personalized care matched to their patients’ individual risks.” – Dr. David Berman

Dr. Anthony Nichols of Lawson Health Research Institute and London Health Sciences Centre is developing a molecular test to predict how patients with HPV-related head and neck cancers, the fastest rising cancers in North America, will respond to treatment. Standard treatment for these cancers is high doses of chemotherapy and radiation, which carry significant side effects, so it’s important to know which patients will benefit from treatment and which patients could be spared unnecessary side effects. Nichols and colleagues will use their I2I award to confirm that their test is accurate and explore how it could be integrated into clinical care.

“With head and neck cancers on the rise, it’s more important than ever to know which therapies work for which patients, so they can get the best chance of survival with the least amount of side effects.” – Dr. Anthony Nichols

Dr. Rola Saleeb of St. Michael’s Hospital, a site of Unity Health Toronto, is exploring the use of a new tool to standardize genetic testing for glioma, the most common type of brain cancer. This technology uses a more affordable DNA sequencing technology and could make genetic testing more accessible. Existing genetic tests are done using large, expensive equipment that isn’t available in all laboratories, meaning tests are often sent away to other labs and patients must wait weeks for results before they can begin treatment. OICR funding will allow Saleeb and colleagues to develop a single test that looks for all relevant glioma biomarkers and runs on the nanopore sequencing platform, which costs only about $1,000 and can fit on a desktop.

“We want to help bring molecular testing into every laboratory so that clinicians everywhere have the information they need to set their patients on the right course of treatment.” ­­– Dr. Rola Saleeb

Dr. Yvonne Bombard of the University of Toronto and St. Michael’s Hospital, a site of Unity Health Toronto, is investigating how to make genetic services for cancer more equitable for all people across Ontario. Genetic testing can help identify people at high risk of developing cancer so they can be screened earlier and treated more effectively should cancer develop. But racialized communities have a more difficult time accessing genetic services and getting a definitive diagnosis, in part because most genetic research is done on people of European ancestry but also because of the barriers built into our healthcare system. With funding from OICR, Bombard and colleagues will interview people from diverse backgrounds as well as genomics researchers, healthcare providers and other stakeholders to identify barriers to accessing genetic services and work together with racialized communities on strategies to overcome them.

“Cancer genetic services can’t reach their full potential until they reach everyone; we are hoping to understand the barriers that currently prevent racialized communities from accessing them. This is an important first step to mitigating these barriers and improving care and health outcomes for all Ontarians.” – Dr. Yvonne Bombard

Dr. Kelvin Chan of Sunnybrook Research Institute is studying the impact of CAR-T cell therapy on quality of life for patients with lymphoma. CAR-T cell therapy shows a lot of promise in treating blood cancers like lymphoma and works by training the body’s immune cells to find and kill cancer. But it is very costly to manufacture and administer, making it difficult for regulators to measure its cost-effectiveness and manage access. In their I2I study, Chan and colleagues will ask lymphoma patients about their quality of life before and after undergoing CAR-T cell therapy so that their experiences can be factored into policy decisions surrounding this potentially life-changing new treatment.

“To fully understand the impact of CAR-T cell therapy, and the potential impact of public reimbursement for it, we need to understand how it affected the lives of the people who have first-hand experience with it.”  – Dr. Kelvin Chan

Dr. Kednapa Thavorn of The Ottawa Hospital and the University of Ottawa is exploring how patient voices can improve economic evaluation – an important part of how health systems assess the value of new technologies. In an earlier OICR-funded study, Thavorn and colleagues invited patients and caregivers to provide input on the financial benefits and burdens of CAR T-cell therapy, a groundbreaking immunotherapy that has delivered promising results for people with blood cancers. This new I2I study will engage a broader range of stakeholders, including patients, researchers and policymakers, to identify barriers that prevent patient engagement in economic evaluations and recommend ways to involve patients more meaningfully.

“Patients know the true costs of having cancer and of undergoing cancer treatment, and therefore should be involved in any discussion about the economic value of a new treatment.” – Dr. Kednapa Thavorn

These projects will build on and inform many other OICR initiatives, including a made-in-Canada approach to CAR-T cell therapy, and a platform to track hereditary cancers in Ontario and unify genetic testing. Altogether, they underscore OICR’s commitment to developing powerful and cost-effective solutions that improve the lives of people affected by cancer.

The views expressed are those of OICR and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Province of Ontario.