Thursday, March 27, 2008
The University of Western Ontario
Tracking Stem Cells to Better Understand Cancer: Canada Foundation for Innovation Funds Labs at Western
London, ON – Research has shown stem cells hold tremendous promise for better understanding diseases, such as cancer. Newly announced funding from the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI) will help researchers at The University of Western Ontario determine the role that complex physiological microenvironments play in the regulation of stem cells and in the growth and spread of cancer.
Recent studies have found that cancers may develop from stem cell populations and that these rarely occurring cells are likely responsible for tumour formation, drug resistance and metastasis. As these cells rely on extracellular cues to direct their function, understanding the microenvironments in which they're found becomes incredibly important.
The newly funded lab, led by Anatomy & Cell Biology professor Lynne-Marie Postovit at the Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry, will look at the types of microenvironments that regulate both normal and cancer cell plasticity and function. It will also help researchers determine the mechanisms by which such microenvironments elicit their effects. Specifically, Postovit hopes to identify new treatment targets for cancer and to provide insights into the maintenance and differentiation of stem cell populations.
"Although a great deal of progress has been made in the fight against cancer, more than 50 per cent of Canadians diagnosed with the illness will succumb to their disease. The infrastructure made possible by this grant will allow us to understand how cancer cells acquire the ability to spread so that we can begin to improve these statistics," Postovit says. “We expect that the results and technology derived from this research will benefit the basic and clinical research communities, as well as the healthcare of Canadians at-large."
Postovit’s lab received $173,586 from the Canada Foundation for Innovation’s (CFI) Leaders Opportunity Fund (LOF), which has been designed to help Canadian universities attract and retain the best researchers. The three other recipients announced at Western today include:
Chemical & Biochemical Engineering professor Jose Herrera received $167,146 for his laboratory to analyse and discover new types of nanomaterials.
Biology professor Jim Karagiannis received $153,259 for work involving live-cell imaging used to understand complex protein networks in cell growth.
Lawson Scientist and Schulich professor John Lewis received $205,418 to develop a state-of-the-art platform for imaging human cancers and to use nanotechnology for the early detection of cancer.
A complete list of LOF projects, by university, can be found at: www.innovation.ca.
Contact:
Lynne Postovit, Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry, 519-661-3936, lynne.postovit@schulich.uwo.ca
Douglas Keddy, Research Communications Coordinator, 519-661-2111 ext. 87485, dkeddy@uwo.ca.
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