MOHCCN Update: A letter from Dr. André Veillette

Dear Colleagues,  

Forty-three years ago, Terry Fox showed the world that every single one of us has a role to play in the fight against cancer. He also showed us that if we work together under a single vision, we can advance cancer research and maximize our impact.
 
On September 17, Canadians from coast to coast to coast (including hundreds of you!) came together for the 43rd annual Terry Fox Run. In doing so, they not only helped raise awareness and funds for cancer research—they also carried the torch of Terry’s enduring legacy.

The Marathon of Hope Cancer Centres Network hopes to embody this legacy. Doing that would be impossible without the hard work that each and every one of you do on a daily basis. Without you – patients, caregivers, researchers, clinicians, lab technicians, bioinformaticians, administrators, donors, fundraisers – the Marathon of Hope Cancer Centres Network would not be possible.
 
We are humbled and grateful for your continued support in the clinic, in the lab, on run day and every day. From the bottom of our hearts, thank you.
 
Sincerely,
 
Dr. André Veillette
Executive Director, MOHCCN

Latest News

Canadian Spectrum Working Group

• Terry Fox’s Marathon of Hope engaged all Canadians, cancer research must do the same. On Sept. 16, Dr. Nadine Caron, co-chair of the Canadian Spectrum Working Group, published an OpEd in the Globe and Mail discussing the need to engage all Canadians in cancer research so that new findings can benefit everyone.
• Canadian Spectrum Working Group (CSWG) Briefing Note: A document outlining the mandate and next steps for the CSWG was distributed with consortia leadership. You can read the letter here.

New awardees announced

Pictured from left to right, the recipients of the MOHCCN Clinician-Scientist Awards: Dr. Basile Tessier-Cloutier, Dr. Natasha Szuber, Dr. Houda Bahig and Dr. Long Viet Nguyen.

• MOHCCN Clinician-Scientist Awards: In July we announced the four winners of the 2023 MOHCCN Clinician-Scientist Awards. Each will receive $225,000 over the next three years to be matched by their host institutions for a total of $450,000 to support groundbreaking research in precision oncology. The winners are: Dr. Houda Bahig (Centre de Recherche du Centre hospitalier de l'Université de Montréal), Dr. Long Viet Nguyen (University Health Network), Dr. Natasha Szuber (Hôpital Maisonneuve-Rosemont), Dr. Basile Tessier-Cloutier (Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre).

The recipients of the inaugural MOHCCN Health Informatics & Data Scientist Awards are: Emmanuelle Rousselle, Peter Her, Nikta Feizi, Riley Arseneau (top row). Caryn Geady, Farnoosh Abbas-Aghababazadeh, Parsa Bagherzadeh, Michael Geuenich (bottom row).

• MOHCCN Health Informatics & Data Scientist Awards: In August we announced the winners of the inaugural MOHCCN Health Informatics & Data Scientist Awards. Each receives $40,000 over the next year to be matched by their host institutions for a total of $80,000 to support the creation and use of new technologies to analyze data to improve diagnostics and therapies for multiple cancer types. The winners are: Farnoosh Abbas-Aghababazadeh (University Health Network), Riley Arseneau (Dalhousie University), Parsa Bagherzadeh (Jewish General Hospital), Nikta Feizi (University Health Network), Caryn Geady (University Health Network), Michael Geuenich (University Health Network), Peter Her (University Health Network), Emmanuelle Rousselle (Jewish General Hospital).

Other news

• Growing the Network: With the signing of Nova Scotia Health Authority, University of Ottawa, L’Institut Universitaire de Cardiologie et de Pneumologie de Québec and Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre we are now up to 31 institutions in our growing Network.
• Terry Fox Run Challenge: On Sept. 17, cancer researchers and clinicians from across the country joined the thousands of Canadians participating in the Terry Fox Run. In total, 24 research teams participated in our annual Terry Fox Run Challenge, raising over $150k for cancer research! We will keep the competition open until Oct. 17.
• New administrative guidelines published: New administrative and financial templates and guidelines have been published on our Researcher Hub.
• Enhanced data dashboard:  We have expanded the data dashboard on our homepage to include new data points, including Cases with Completed Clinical Data and Cases by Consortium.