Early detection remains one of the most important ways to reduce the impact of cancer.

Yet for many cancers, there remain no accurate tools or tests for detecting the disease before it spreads. Support from the Canary Foundation provides critical resources to explore the most novel approaches for improving our ability to detect and treat cancer at its earliest stage. The Stanford Cancer Institute is delighted to be part of this important effort.

Beverly S. Mitchell, MD

Director, Stanford Cancer Institute (2008-2018)

Canary Collaborations and Partnerships

The right collaboration and the right partnership change everything. Recognizing early on that we couldn’t do it all alone, we’ve always cultivated strong relationships with institutions, academia, and industry to bring together a diverse set of stakeholders to take on early cancer detection research.

Our foundation partnerships link mutual scientific expertise and entrepreneurial spirit in the hopes of advancing research in the diagnostic arena of early cancer detection. Together, we’re creating a world where cancer is diagnosed at its earliest stage to save lives.

Institution Collaborations

Canary Foundation supports research led by cancer researchers and clinicians located at collaborating research institutions, which include:

Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC), Boston, Massachusetts
BIDMC is a site for the Canary Prostate cancer Active Surveillance Study (PASS). PASS is a multi-center study enrolling men with early-stage prostate cancer who elect to manage their cancer by being actively monitored rather than immediately treated.

British Columbia Cancer Agency (BCCA)/BC Cancer Foundation, Vancouver, British Columbia
University of British Columbia (UBC) is a site for the Canary Prostate cancer Active Surveillance Study (PASS). Canary Foundation and BCCA are also managing a resource of antibodies and hybridomas that were created by the Canary Foundation in Victoria to test candidate biomarkers for lung, pancreatic, prostate, and ovarian cancer. In the past, Canary has supported ovarian and lung cancer research at BCCA.

Eastern Virginia Medical School (EVMS), Norfolk, Virginia
EVMS is a site for the Canary Prostate cancer Active Surveillance Study (PASS).

Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center (FHCRC), Seattle, Washington
Canary supports ovary and prostate team research and PASS at FHCRC. For PASS, FHCRC houses the data management and coordinating center and the central biospecimen repository. In the past, Canary has supported the lung, ovarian, prostate, and baseline (to profile baseline biomarker levels in healthy individuals) team awards at this research center.

Stanford Cancer Institute, Stanford, California
The Canary Center at Stanford and the research conducted there falls under the umbrella of the Stanford Cancer Institute (SCI). Early detection is a key component of SCI’s mission of improved diagnostic, treatment and prevention strategies of cancer.

Stanford University Medical School, Stanford, California
Stanford is a site for the Prostate cancer Active Surveillance Study (PASS). Canary also provides support for lung and pancreatic cancer research at Stanford. In the past, Canary has provided support for the lung and ovarian research teams.

Canary Center at Stanford, Stanford, California
Canary supports the core resources and Canary Center faculty.

University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), San Francisco, California
UCSF is a site for the Canary Prostate cancer Active Surveillance Study (PASS) and the Canary high grade serous cancer (HGSC) initiative for ovarian cancer.

University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Penn is a site for the Canary high grade serous cancer (HGSC) initiative for ovarian cancer, and Canary has provided support at Penn for the ovarian cancer team.

The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, San Antonio, Texas
San Antonio is a site for the Canary Prostate cancer Active Surveillance Study (PASS).

University of Washington (UW), Seattle, Washington
UW is a site for the Canary Prostate cancer Active Surveillance Study (PASS), and Canary has provided support at UW for the ovarian and pancreatic cancer teams.

University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan
Michigan is a site for the Canary Prostate cancer Active Surveillance Study (PASS).

Van Andel Institute (VAI), Grand Rapids, Michigan
VAI is a site for the Canary high grade serous cancer (HGSC) initiative for ovarian cancer.

VA Puget Sound Health Care System, Seattle, Washington
The Seattle VA is a site for the Canary Prostate cancer Active Surveillance Study (PASS).

Canary has also supported work at the following institutions:

City of Hope, Duarte, California
Canary supported the City of Hope site for the Novel Markers Trial for ovarian cancer screening.

El Camino Hospital, Mountain View, California
Supported clinical trials aimed at biospecimen collection and banking for breast, ovarian, pancreatic, and other cancer types.

MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, Texas
Supported research for prostate cancer and lung cancer early detection, leading to the launch of a collaborative study to determine a set of biomarkers for lung cancer to reduce false positive screening, increase lung cancer early detection rate, and identify people with high risk for lung cancer who need screening.

Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Research Center, New York, New York
Supported lung cancer research.

Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York, New York
Supported lung cancer research.

Princess Margaret Hospital, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Supported ovarian cancer research.

University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California
Supported pancreatic cancer research.

University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California
Supported lung and ovarian cancer research.

University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, Texas
Supported lung cancer research.

Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut
Supported lung cancer research.

Government Institution Collaborations

Research collaborations with government agencies allow Canary to share cost savings and the potential to facilitate scientific progress. Going beyond receiving grant support from government agencies, Canary Foundation has worked in partnership with Canadian and U.S. government institutions on specific early detection projects, including:

BC Cancer Agency, British Columbia, Canada
Canary Foundation set up and supported a facility at the Deeley Research Center in Victoria, British Columbia, to generate reagents to test candidate biomarkers for lung, pancreatic, prostate, and ovarian cancer. Canary Foundation and BCCA now work together to manage the antibody and hybridoma resource created over many years as part of this facility.

Early Detection Research Network of the National Cancer Institute, Bethesda, Maryland
The Early Detection Research Network (EDRN), an initiative of the National Cancer Institute (NCI), brings together dozens of institutions to help accelerate the translation of biomarker information into clinical applications and to evaluate new ways of testing cancer in its earliest stages and for cancer risk. EDRN has provided statistical and data management support for the Canary Prostate Cancer Active Surveillance Study, PASS. Additionally EDRN and Canary Foundation jointly funded a multi-institutional project to discover biomarkers of lung cancer in people who have never smoked. Research continues to gain a better molecular understanding of never-smoker lung cancer and to validate biomarkers discovered as part of the joint project.

Corporate Partnerships

At Canary, we believe that collaboration drives innovation. We work collaboratively with corporations who are advancing the next-generation of early cancer detection technologies. These partnerships advance knowledge about the potential clinical use of promising diagnostics. Examples include:

Abbott Diagnostics, Santa Clara, California
Canary Foundation worked with Abbott Diagnostics to support testing of blood-based biomarkers in women participating in the Novel Markers Trial.

Avaya, Santa Clara, California
Avaya has provided video conferencing systems to help our global scientists communicate seamlessly and consistently.

Bracco, Milan, Italy
Canary Foundation researchers worked in partnership with Bracco to enter contrast enhanced ultrasound techniques into U.S. clinical trials.

Exact Sciences/GHI, Madison, Wisconsin
The Canary prostate cancer team partnered with Exact Sciences (formerly GHI) to test a tissue-based biomarker panel for risk stratification in PASS.

Fujirebio, Malvern, Pennsylvania
Fujirebio, a premier diagnostics company and an industry leader in biomarker assays, commercialized the biomarker HE4 that was discovered in conjunction with Canary’s Ovarian Cancer team research. HE4 is now cleared in the U.S. as an aid in monitoring recurrence or progressive disease in patients with epithelial ovarian cancer.

GenoLogics, Redwood City, California
Canary Foundation partnered with GenoLogics to provide software solutions for researchers at different institutions to share multi-omics datasets linked to cell lines, tissues, and blood from the same sets of patients.

Gen-Probe/Hologic, San Diego, California
The Canary Prostate cancer team partnered with Hologic to test urine-based biomarkers in Canary PASS participants.

Labcyte, Sunnyvale, California
Canary Foundation, through the Canary Center at Stanford, partnered with Labcyte on techniques to improve detection of cancer-related proteins.

Labkey Software, Seattle, Washington
Labkey uses an open-source approach to help translational research teams make sense of complex data while collaborating securely. Canary partnered with Labkey to provide a standardized data repository for early cancer detection data.

MDxHealth, Irvine, California
The Canary prostate team partnered with MDxHealth to test a urine biomarker panel in the Canary PASS participants.

OPKO Health, Miami, Florida
The Canary Prostate cancer team is partnering with OPKO Health to test blood-based biomarkers in the Canary Prostate Active Surveillance Study participants.

Orchard Supply Hardware, San Jose, California
Orchard Supply Hardware chose Canary Foundation as their charity for their annual golf tournament. Over a four-year period, OSH raised $1.3 million for early cancer detection research.

Foundation Collaborations

Beyond our team members receiving independent funding from foundations, Canary Foundation has also partnered with other foundations to achieve specific joint initiatives. Foundations Canary has worked with on early detection initiatives include:

The Lustgarten Foundation, New York
Canary Foundation established a partnership with the Lustgarten Foundation for Pancreatic Cancer Research to develop a joint set of blood-based biomarkers for research and early detection testing. Work to generate tests for 60 pancreatic cancer biomarkers was completed in 2010.

American Cancer Society, Atlanta, Georgia
In 2005, Canary and the American Cancer Society partnered to provide postdoctoral research fellowships to scientists in the field of early cancer detection. The program continued until 2011.

Uniting Against Lung Cancer, New York
In 2010, Canary partnered with Uniting Against Lung Cancer in an initiative to find biomarkers in people who have never smoked.