NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) – Canary Foundation said that it has received two gifts totaling $8.5 million that will help the organization continue its work in developing tests for early cancer detection.
The Palo Alto, Calif.-based foundation said the first gift of $7.5 million from the William K. Bowes Jr. Foundation will support a faculty position focused on clinical trials at the Canary Center at Stanford University. It also will provide money for the Founder's Fund, which supports unmet needs and special projects.
The second donation of $1 million from the Frank and Denise Quattrone Foundation will support Canary's Prostate Active Surveillance Study, a clinical trial including 1,000 participants that aims to test technologies that can distinguish lethal versus non-lethal prostate cancer.
"These contributions create new momentum for our research," canary Foundation Executive Director Ronica Smucker said in a statement. "Moving the studies out of the lab and to patients, with FDA approval, helps prove the efficacy of the blood and imaging tests we are developing that can save lives on a widespread basis."
The nonprofit is working on the discovery of blood biomarkers and molecular imaging biomarkers that would be used in combination for early detection of cancer.
Among its collaborations is a biomarker validation program with Labcyte that aims to develop a system that integrates "a suite of well-established biotechnologies," including Labcyte's proprietary acoustic liquid handling for arraying and MALDI mass spectrometry preparation. Last year, that collaborative effort received a grant of $196,000 from the National Cancer Institute.