Your Dollars At Work

“I have become a bit cynical over the last few years about people's ability to care for anyone outside their 'inner circle.' This experience has renewed my faith in humanity in general…”  - Tamara Flick-Parker

The Weekend to End Breast Cancer is now the largest breast cancer fundraiser in the history of British Columbia. Thanks to outstanding participant and donor support, in just the last four years, more than $13 million has been raised to invest in British Columbia based” breast cancer treatment and research. (This is compared to just $200,000 a year prior to The Weekend to End Breast Cancer!)

These are just some of the programs funded by your support:

Helping physicians to advance their clinical research programmes

• The Weekend to End Breast Cancer has made it possible for the BC Cancer Foundation to invest $640,000 over a 2-year period to support the four BC Cancer Agency clinical research centres located in Vancouver, Vancouver Island, Southern Interior and Fraser Valley.

• The Vancouver Island Cancer Centre in Victoria hired a clinical research coordinator and a clinical trials nurse, who will work with patients and researchers to enroll eligible breast cancer patients into clinical trials, and to manage the Centre’s many ongoing trials more effectively.

• The Fraser Valley Cancer Centre in Surrey chose to employ a breast cancer nurse coordinator. Breast cancer patients at the Centre will now be assigned to this nurse, who will guide and support them through their programme of care (including clinical trials) through liaison with specialist physicians and researchers.

• The Vancouver Cancer Centre hired a research development facilitator, who will support clinical research protocols, research grant and manuscript submissions by breast cancer researchers and a research nurse navigator who contacts patients attending clinics about their willingness to participate in research and provide supportive information on the journey through the care system.

State of the art facilities for breast cancer research and diagnosis
Funds from the Weekend to End Breast Cancer have also been used to support the following technologies and programmes at the BC Cancer Agency:

• A $200,000 contribution for BC’s first digital mammography machine (at the BC Cancer Agency), making faster and more accurate breast cancer diagnosis available to BC patients.

• A facility for sampling and storing breast tumour cells live, so that they can be studied for the effects of drug treatment in the lab.

• Positron emission tomography combined with computational tomography (PET/CT imaging), allowing researchers to visualize in real-time how new experimental drugs affect tumour size and behavior.

• In vivo imaging system (IVIS), enabling real-time monitoring of biochemical processes in living tumour cells and animal breast cancer models in response to drugs.

• High content whole genome genetic screens, to allow detailed analysis of how individually disabling every single human gene affects tumour cells’ response to chemotherapy.

• A $1 million investment into infrastructure at the Vancouver research centre of the BC Cancer Agency, giving researcher’s access to animal models that can be used in drug development programmes and studies of the genetics of cancer susceptibility.
  

Recruitment of internationally renowned breast cancer experts to British Columbia
Prior to the Weekend to End Breast Cancer there was little funding available to build an effective breast cancer research team in BC. So funds from the Weekend event have been used to attract breast cancer research experts to British Columbia and, for the first time, to develop a “critical mass” of breast cancer research in this province:

• The first recruit was Dr. Sam Aparicio from Cambridge University in the UK. Dr. Aparicio joined the BC Cancer Agency in June of 2005 with his programme underwritten by a $14 million seven year commitment by the BC Cancer Foundation based on the success of the Weekend to End Breast Cancer.

• Shortly after his arrival Dr. Aparicio recruited Dr. Poul Sorensen (who is located in Vancouver) and Dr. Peter Watson who heads up the BC Cancer Agency Tumour Tissue Repository in Victoria.

• These three investigators have now established exciting breast cancer research programmes that take full advantage of the above-mentioned facilities supported by the Weekend to End Breast Cancer.
  
• The most recent recruit is Dr. Francois Benard, who has a distinguished research record in the field of cancer imaging and will join the BC Cancer Agency from the University of Sherbrooke in March 2008.
  
• Dr. Benard will use his new position as BC Leadership Chair in Functional Cancer Imaging Research to help make the BC Cancer Research Centre a world leader in this field.
  
• Dr. Benard’s research will encompass several clinical trials, and will use and develop the PET/CT and IVIS technologies described above to help optimize breast cancer treatments for individual patients.
  
• The Weekend to End Breast Cancer will also provide $1 million to support a new position The Patty Clugston Chair in Breast Reconstruction Surgery which will develop a treatment and research programme to better meet the needs of the increasing number of patients who opt for reconstructive breast surgery.
  

Fostering collaboration and partnerships tackling breast cancer Nationally and Internationally
The Weekend to End Breast Cancer has transformed breast cancer research in British Columbia but its impact is also felt in other parts of Canada and the world. Interaction between experts in different fields helps to build partnerships and collaborations that drive research forward and accelerate the development of new breast cancer treatments.

Here are just a few examples:

• METABRIC: an international collaboration with 5 centres across Canada and the UK to identify the characteristics of breast tumours that can help physicians decide on the optimal course of treatment for individual patients, jointly funded with Cancer Research UK, the worlds largest cancer research charity.

• PREDICT: an initiative launched initially at the BC Cancer Agency’s Deeley Research Centre on Vancouver Island, to identify genetic factors that affect how different patients respond to chemotherapy. PREDICT will be launched in the other BC Cancer Agency centres based on experience gained on Vancouver Island.

• The inaugural Weekend to End Breast Cancer Research workshop was held in Vancouver in 2006, bringing together the latest in research in breast cancer from across Canada, the UK and the US. Originating in BC, this important research collaboration event took place again in Toronto in 2007; with a breast cancer think-tank planned for 2008.These events bring researchers from across the country together to discuss the most important issues in breast cancer research and treatment.
  

Educating the next generation of breast cancer researchers
Breast cancer research has made huge advance; but the ability to continue and build on this progress will depend upon maintaining that focus and educating the next generation of cancer researchers.

Here is how the Weekend to End Breast Cancer provides that legacy for future research:

• Weekend to End Breast Cancer funds are used to support students and other research trainees in labs around British Columbia.

•  Drs. Aparicio, Sorensen and Watson currently support and mentor a total of 6 students and 9 postdoctoral trainees.

•  The excellent facilities and collaborations supported by the Weekend to End Breast Cancer help these young researchers gain the knowledge and skills they will need to develop their own breast cancer research programmes.

Helping every patient diagnosed with breast cancer in British Columbia

A diagnosis of breast cancer is of course a shock to all patients but the BC Cancer Agency is there from the beginning to provide not just care but information and support as patients navigate their journey to recovery. The Weekend to End Breast Cancer helps to make that happen:

• For the first time in 2008 The Weekend to End Breast Cancer will provide funding of up to $100,000 to provide an information kit to anyone newly diagnosed with breast cancer.

•  Some 3,200 of these kits are produced each year and made available to patients through surgeons’ offices, chemotherapy clinics, BC Cancer Agency Centres and pre-admission surgery clinics across British Columbia.