The team has leveraged the power of philanthropy to secure grant money at an average ROI of 5:1 and expand the impact of their work. These grants are crucial to ensure sustainability and growth for a future institute.

We are pleased to share that in 2022, the team secured an astonishing 31 new research grants totaling $15.1M and 20 student support awards totalling $1.1M.

PROSTATE CANCER

The Urologic Oncology Fellowship at VGH is a leading urologic training program in the country, housed in one of the world’s leading translational research centres – the VPC. It provides advanced training in comprehensive clinical and surgical care of patients with urologic malignancies, as well as a dedicated research fellowship. Your philanthropy is helping the team educate and train the brightest minds in urology research and care, ensuring that patients will continue to have access to excellent specialized treatment now and well into the future.

Dr. Amina Zoubeidi, Professor and Senior Research Scientist at VPC and Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Cancer Therapy Resistance, has secured a $6 million Terry Fox Program Project grant for the VPC team’s research targeting prostate tumours that evade standard therapy. Her group will investigate how some prostate cancer cells evade current targeted therapies, assess the ability of cells to change their genetic information in response to environmental cues (emergent cell plasticity) and uncover exploitable vulnerabilities. This research will allow scientists to understand why some cancers are able to evade standard treatments and try to find new ways to attack these difficult cancer cells.