“We have received major grants for our research and I have put in a lot of time and hard work,” says Market. “It’s very rewarding to be recognized for my work, especially at the provincial level.”

Market works in Lisa Porter’s cancer research lab studying the interaction between proteins that regulate cell cycle, because versions of these proteins are associated with the development of breast and lung cancer.

Another top award winner was fourth-year student Georgette Nader from Barbara Zielinski’s lab, where researchers study cell structure of the invasive sea lamprey in hopes of developing conservation measures. Nadar won the Canadian Society of Zoologists Outstanding Research Award.

“Winning a top award is an absolute dream,” says Nader. “It’s truly a privilege, not just for me but also for my entire lab and goes to show that hard work does pay off and I could not be more thrilled with the outcome.”

More than 100 undergraduate students from across Ontario competed in the annual oral presentation competition, held in March at Carleton University in Ottawa. UWindsor students won five of the 11 awards on offer. Other winners for best within their section included:

• Alex Zubic from Trevor Pitcher’s lab in reproductive biology
• Stephanie Cervi from Dennis Higgs’ lab in neuroscience
• Sean Power from Christina Semeniuk’s lab in animal physiology

Dr. Pitcher, assistant professor in biology, made the trip to Ottawa with the students.

“I was incredibly proud of how they handled themselves,” he says. “They were professional, mature and are a shining example of what UWindsor produces.”

Source: University Of Windsor

Bre-Anne Fifield, 27, has been tackling her PhD since 2009 and is hoping to finish her studies in biological sciences next month when she brings her breast cancer research to the thesis defense table.

“What we’re looking at is these drivers of cell proliferation and cell growth, which normally will allow the cell to divide,” she said, explaining her research. “And what happens when we increase levels? Will it drive formation of tumours and will it increase the ability of a cell to become tumourgenic?”

During Fifield’s presentation at the Biennial International Cancer Research Conference, she talked about a model system she created to gauge whether increasing certain regulators of cell growth and division creates tumours.

She found that an increase of the Spy1 protein, naturally fundamental in cell growth, led to increased tumour development, primarily in allowing damaged cells to grow when they shouldn’t be.

Fifield is one of many researchers brought into the Biennial International Cancer Research Conference, with presenters coming from across the province and country, as well as from the U.S. and even overseas from Egypt.

This is the second time the event has been held by the Windsor Cancer Research Group. The research group started two years ago as a partnership between the university and Windsor Regional Hospital.

“We’ve come together to form this group to facilitate cancer research in our community,” said the research group’s public outreach chair Dora Cavallo-Medved. “And to build Windsor as a centre of excellence for cancer research.”

Cavallo-Medved, a biological sciences professor and cancer researcher at the university thinks that Windsor, a border city, is the ideal place to foster international collaboration in cancer research and that the conference helps to strengthen that collaboration.

The research group recently launched their Passports: Bridging Research and Hope program, hoping to make it easier to bring tissues for research across the border. Cavallo-Medved said that they’re hoping to lay the groundwork for allowing Windsor-Essex cancer patients to hop the border for specialized clinical trials.

“Nothing is the same everyday when you go in,” Fifield said, describing her experience with cancer research. Cancer has touched her personally, having had friends and family deal with cancer in the past. “Everyone’s touched by it, so its something that you want to help treat it.”

Fifield has been able to focus a lot of time on her research, thanks to being the university’s first recipient of a fellowship from the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation for $112,000 in 2011.

“Overall, you’re hoping that what you find, you can contribute to something bigger like getting better treatments and helping with patient outcomes.”

Source: Windsor Star

William Conklin was elected by his peers to be a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, whose scholars are considered to be at the pinnacle of achievement in their discipline.

Conklin’s work includes original, internationally recognized contributions to legal theory, Canadian constitutional and international law, and legal philosophy and education.

Two other professors will also be named members of the College of new Scholars, Artists and Scientists. That nomination honours emerging leaders in their academic fields.

Biology professor Lisa Porter researches the growth of aggressive brain and breast cancer tumours. She has also been an advocate of connecting research across the Southwestern Ontario and Michigan border.

Music professor Sally Bick looks at the relationship between music and politics. She has researched the political connections of American music in Hollywood films during the 1930s and 1940s.

Source: Windsor Star

The Windsor Essex County Cancer Centre Foundation, together with the University of Windsor and our community partners, Windsor Regional Hospital and the Windsor Cancer Research Group are very pleased to announce the inauguration of the Seeds4Hope Community Seminar Series.

The purpose of the seminar series is to:
-Update the community on the progress of past and current Seeds4Hope research projects,
-Share the impact of Seeds4Hope grants on improved cancer care in our community,
-Outline additional grants as a result of Seeds4Hope project funding, and
-Highlight how Seeds4Hope projects have initiated and fostered networks of basic scientists, social scientists and health care professionals.

Speakers include Dr. Lisa Porter, Dr. Dora Cavallo-Medved, and Dr. Eleanor Maticka-Tyndale.

The event is complimentary to the public.

The event is being hosted at Willistead Manor Park, in Windsor, ON.
Time 6:00pm to 8:00pm

Linked here.

PDF [463 KB] is available for download at this link or attached here.

Linked here.

PDF [651 KB] is available for download at this link or attached here.

Linked here.

PDF [197KB] available at this link or attached here.

Third-year biology student Samer Jassar spends a fair amount of time working in the lab trying to understand the various pathways that allow cancer cells to spread.

This weekend, he’ll hit the pathways of east Windsor to raise funds to support cancer research, as well as for those struggling with brain tumours.

“I like to give back, and if there are events like these happening, then I should take every opportunity to participate in them,” said Jassar, who will take part in Windsor Spring Sprint, an annual fundraiser to benefit the Brain Tumour Foundation of Canada.

The winner of a Brain Tumour Foundation studentship, Jassar volunteers in the lab of biology professor and cancer researcher Lisa Porter. While he’s still learning the ropes of the myriad research techniques, he’ll soon be studying how brain tumours metastasize in zebra fish, which have proven excellent models for studying how cancer cells grow, and how they respond to various treatments.

Jassar will take part in the event, which kicks off this Saturday at 10 a.m. at the Riverside Sportsmen’s Club. Participants have the option of doing a 2.5 km or 5 km walk or run, but Jassar is doing the 5 km run, and wants to do it in record time.

“My personal best is 28 minutes, but I want to do it in 25,” said the Holy Names High School graduate.

Jassar is part of a team called the Minion Rivet Fairies, which includes a number of people from the Porter lab, as well as from the Windsor Cancer Research Group, an assembly of researchers, clinicians and community partners dedicated to strengthening local cancer research programs and collaborating with neighbouring cancer centres.

Dr. Porter, who is WCRG’s scientific director, will also participate in the event, along with Karen Metcalfe, the organization’s coordinator. Metcalfe is married to UWindsor track coach Brett Lumley, and their daughter McKenna is a brain tumour survivor. Last year, the team raised $15,000 and this year members are trying to raise $20,000.

Click here if you’d like to make a donation to the team.

Source: UWindsor Daily News

The first true international cancer research corridor in North America is one step closer to being launched in Windsor-Essex, thanks to a recent contribution from Windsor Regional Hospital.

In late December, hospital board chair Gay Wrye presented the Windsor Cancer Research Group with a cheque for $25,000 as part of a matching challenge grant program.

The WCRG is an assembly of local researchers, clinicians and community partners on both sides of the Canada-U.S. border working together to build teams that will strengthen local cancer research programs and bridge collaborations with neighbouring cancer centres. It will lay the foundation for bringing international clinical trial access to Windsor-Essex cancer patients.

Passports: Bridging Research and Hope, was a $100,000 fundraising campaign launched last October by WCRG and kicked off with a $25,000 donation from Caesars Windsor. The hospital has committed to $25,000 and will match that amount when the organization raises another $25,000.

Biology professor and WCRG scientific director Lisa Porter said she’s extremely grateful for the donations and excited to move the initiative forward.

“Collaborations with our US partners offer a novel opportunity for new medical research projects, improving local health care, and expanding industrial collaborations that may diversify the job market for Windsor-Essex and Detroit,” said Dr. Porter.

WCRG clinical director Caroline Hamm said the hospital’s latest donation was crucial to helping Windsor health care move to the next level.

“By establishing a cross border research collaborative, we can help to ensure that patients in the Windsor Essex county region continue to receive cutting edge and world class medical treatments right here at home,” said Dr. Hamm.

Wrye said it was a privilege to support the project.

“Windsor Regional Hospital recognizes how important this initiative is to the residents of our region, and the vision of establishing world class care right here in our community,” she said.

Source: UWindsor Daily News

University of Windsor researchers have identified a protein that causes brain tumours to return — a finding that could ultimately help save lives.

Published this week in the respected U.S. medical journal Cancer Cell, five years of research shows that hiding among many less dangerous cousins is one nasty protein — aptly named Spy1, and nicknamed Speedy — that appears in high numbers in recurring brain-tumour cells.

“One of the big things about brain tumours is that you can treat them but very often they reoccur, and if they reoccur they become more aggressive,” Lisa Porter, a University of Windsor associate professor of biological science who led the research team, said Thursday. “Finding out why certain populations of cells in a brain tumour come back is a major goal for a lot of people.”

The research team included Porter and fellow University of Windsor scientists Dorota Lubanska, Brenna Market-Velker, and Elizabeth Fidalgo da Silva. As well, the paper’s authors include Ana deCarvalho and Tom Mikkelsen from Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit. The research was funded by the Canadian Cancer Society and the Cancer Research Society.

Now that researchers from the University of Windsor and Henry Ford Hospital have proved that Spy1 is so determined to keep brain tumours alive, doctors can concentrate on killing it.

“You want to get rid of all of the tumour cells, but they’re not all equally deadly,” Porter said. “So we could target the population of cells that are the most dangerous, the ones we really want to get rid of.”

Porter believes the breakthrough with the Spy1 cell-growth protein happened thanks to cross-border co-operation. Her team was on the right track but needed recent patient samples — something available just across the Detroit River, but buried under red tape.

So in 2012 she helped found the Windsor Cancer Research Group, now comprised of 25 researchers and clinicians from the university and Windsor Regional Hospital. In October, the group launched a $100,000 fund-raising campaign to create a freer flow of tissue, animals and information across the border through an initiative called Passports: Bridging Research and Hope. Caesars Windsor donated the first $25,000.

On Thursday, Windsor Regional Hospital also donated $25,000, with a promise of another $25,000 if the group can raise the same amount on its own. Billed as “the first global cancer research office,” the project now has $50,000 and counting.

“It took us a long time to work through all the red tape, to get these kinds of tissues to enable this kind of work,” Porter said. “We want these collaboration to happen much quicker.”

For three years, Porter’s group worked with lab-grown cells. But lab cells mutate slightly over time. Using samples from patients provides more reliable data, something Porter wishes she had years ago.

“For sure it would have shaved years off, because we started using alternatives to human samples since we didn’t have access to real ones,” she said. “We would have got our answers much quicker had we been able to jump right in and use actual patient samples.

“Making this an easier process will help researchers in Windsor and Detroit.”

Source: The Windsor Star, Craig Pearson