WICC’s 6th annual National Sponsor Appreciation Luncheon was held on Thursday, February 27th at the University of Toronto St George Campus. This year, Dr. Raymond Reilly, a WICC grant recipient, offered to open up his lab to us for a 10.00am tour and presentation, with luncheon for our sponsors to follow. Our friends at the IBAO were also invited to attend the event as our 2020 Community Sponsor, and we were delighted to have Norah Black and Erin Hough join us.
Dr Raymond Reilly is a professor and the Director of the Centre for Pharmaceutical Oncology at the Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy at the University of Toronto. His research is aimed at making radiation therapy safer and more effective for people with cancer. Dr Reilly has received numerous grants from CCS and the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation. He most recently received a 2019 CCS Innovation to Impact Grant to study a new radiation technique to treat triple negative breast cancer and prevent its spread.
Dr. Reilly was a very engaging speaker and spoke with great passion about his research, “a new radiation treatment for metastatic triple negative breast cancer” for which he is currently receiving funding from WICC. Our sponsors very much enjoyed the lab tour, which included mini presentations by Dr. Reilly’s research students as we moved through the lab.
We learned that Triple Negative Breast Cancer (TNBC) is a highly aggressive form of the disease with a high likelihood of becoming metastatic, even when it is detected early. People with metastatic TNBC currently have few treatment options beyond chemotherapy, which often fails as the tumours become resistant quickly. With the support of a CCS Innovation to Impact Grant, Dr Raymond Reilly and his team are pioneering an innovative new technique that would improve treatment for TNBC and prevent its spread. Their technique uses gold nanoparticles to help amplify and target radiation specifically to the tumour to boost its effectiveness and reduce side effects. The researchers will also study whether this new technique can be combined with immunotherapy to limit the spread of TNBC tumours, offering new hope to people with this deadly disease.
This appreciation event offered a unique opportunity for our National Sponsors to take a tour of Dr. Reilly’s lab and hear from the Canadian Cancer Society’s top researchers, about the impact WICC’s contributions are having on cancer research.
It was also an opportunity for the WICC Ontario Executive to spend time with their National Sponsors, share our plans for 2020 and answer any questions regarding WICC and their ongoing mission.
If you would like to learn more about Dr. Reilly’s work please click here.
