Pathology and laboratory medicine researchers win “impact grants” from Canadian Cancer Society

Three professors in the Dept. of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine—Sam Aparicio, David Huntsman and Torsten Nielsen—have received Canadian Cancer Society Impact Grants ($1.25 million each), which are the largest single grants ever offered by the organization.

Aparicio will receive his grant over five years to investigate how breast cancer arises, grows and mutates. Huntsman’s grant will enable him to use advanced genomic approaches, including whole genome sequencing, to identify driver mutations—mutations that cause normal cells to become cancerous—in two of the deadliest forms of ovarian cancer. Nielson has made major progress in the understanding of a rare soft tissue cancer—synovial sarcoma—which mainly affects children and young adults and for which standard anticancer therapies offer little benefit.

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