THUNDER BAY – Medical research is something patients rarely think of when they are in need of care.
Yet research being done locally can go a long way to making a positive impact in treating life-threatening diseases such as cancer.
Two local medical research facilities, the Thunder Bay Regional Research Institute and the Lake Superior Centre for Regenerative Medicine, are receiving nearly $900,000 from the provincial government to improve patient care.
Thunder Bay-Superior North MPP Michael Gravelle was among those making the announcement on Friday and as a cancer survivor himself he knows how important it is to treat the disease before it becomes deadly.
“Any more research that we can that can actually reduce the amount of time before people get diagnosed with cancer is huge,” he said. “We all know what a scourge and challenge cancer is for so many people here in Thunder Bay, and I am one of them.”
The regional research institute, which works in collaboration with the Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre, is receiving $650,000 from the Northern Ontario Heritage Fund Corporation to buy a MicroPET scanner, which uses new imaging technology in pre-clinical experiments.
That scanner provides biochemistry information about the disease, allowing for quicker decisions about which treatment option to use and a much faster way to rate its progress.
“You can help guide therapeutic decision making, you can help evaluate if therapy is working often days after the therapy has started. A lot of this is really cutting-edge and isn’t used routinely,” research institute scientist Dr. Chris Phenix said.
“The care is more efficient and effective, especially in cancer research where time is critically important. To have answers on whether a therapy is working in days instead of months is important for patient survival.”
That work will work with isotopes created at the cyclotron, which is expected to be installed in early 2015.
Earlier this year Premier Kathleen Wynne visited the city and announced a $4 million contribution to the research institute.
This grant continues to make the work being done in the region among the best in the province.
“The research that’s going on in Northwestern Ontario is world-class when you think of the emerging facilities like the cyclotron and pre-clinical facility we’re setting up,” Phenix said.
“The equipment we’re going to be getting is really going to complete all the facilities we need to take our discoveries from bench to bedside.”
The Lake Superior Centre for Regenerative Medicine is receiving $241,000 from the heritage fund to buy equipment to process bone tissue and be the first tissue bank in the country to provide bone grafts for dental surgery.
The funding announcement is said to create six new jobs at the two facilities while helping both retain 21 positions.
“What we’re celebrating is continuing to build on what’s become a real health, research and knowledge cluster in Thunder Bay that we really couldn’t talk about eight or 10 years ago,” Thunder Bay-Atikokan MPP Bill Mauro said.
