NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) – Canada's Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation said today that it will use a new C$50 million (US$50.3 million) private donation to fund a research effort that will use genomics, molecular imaging, and tumor biology studies to develop personalized cancer medicine innovations.
The gift from philanthropists Emmanuelle Gattuso and Allan Slaight will fund the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre's Personalized Cancer Medicine Initiative. The cancer center's research arm is the Ontario Cancer Institute, which includes the Campbell Family Cancer Research Institute.
The new donation will support the foundation's Billion Dollar Challenge, which aims to raise C$1 billion to fund the personalized medicine effort and has netted C$243 million in donations and grants to date.
The Personalized Cancer Medicine Initiative will fund research projects seeking to detect tumors earlier in their progression, analyze them more precisely, and target them with specific interventions.
"This unprecedented "superfund" allows us to build and support research teams focused on precision genomics, advanced tumour biology, immune therapy, and molecular imaging," Benjamin Neel, research director of the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, said in a statement.