Ontario Tumour Bank’s 10th Anniversary
Pictured above: Gino Celebre, Pathologists’ Assistant, St. Joseph's Healthcare Hamilton and Anbreen Zaidi, Clinical Research Coordinator, St. Joseph's Healthcare Hamilton
Congratulations to the Ontario Tumour Bank (OTB) for celebrating 10 years! The OTB is an Ontario-wide biorepository and data bank and is one of the largest in Canada. This milestone was celebrated at St. Joe’s Charlton Campus on September 16th with an open house as well as a lab tour.
Four Ontario academic hospitals participate in the Tumour Bank program: Kingston General Hospital, London Health Sciences Centre, St. Joseph’s Healthcare Hamilton and The Ottawa Hospital. OTB has collected biospecimens from over 14,000 patients and has completed almost 300 requests from researchers with more than 31,000 samples.
“The ongoing support of our partners in Hamilton, Kingston, London and Ottawa and the hard work of OTB staff across the province have been key to OTB’s success, and have ensured we are well positioned for continued success in the future” says Dr. John Bartlett, Provincial Principal Investigator for the Ontario Tumour Bank and the Director of the Transformative Pathology Program at the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research.
The OTB program is a part of the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research (OICR), funded by the government of Ontario, which is a not-for-profit organization supporting research on prevention, early detection, diagnosis, treatment and control of cancer. The OICR’s research supports 1,700 investigators, clinician scientists, and research staff located at their headquarters and also in research and academic institutes.
“I am proud to congratulate the Ontario Tumour Bank on its first 10 years of operation,” said Reza Moridi, Ontario Minister of Research and Innovation. “The OTB provides an incredible service to cancer researchers in Ontario and around the world. And it is helping fuel the next generation of more personalized cancer medicine. Ontario’s strategic investments in research collaborations like the OTB are positioning the province as a global leader in life sciences and will improve the lives of patients who suffer with cancer.”
For more information please visit the Ontario Tumour Bank website at this link: www.ontariotumourbank.ca
Read more about the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research here: www.oicr.on.ca