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New developments shape direction of Canary ovarian research program

July 11, 2018

In an effort to further the understanding of early-stage ovarian cancer and find potential ways to detect and treat it, Canary is collaborating with the BRCA Foundation on a new ovarian cancer initiative.

This initiative is being lead by Ronny Drapkin, MD, PhD, Director of the Penn Ovarian Research Center and Director of Gynecological Cancer Research at the Basser Center for BRCA at the University of Pennsylvania, and Chuck Drescher, MD, a gynecological oncologist and research scientist at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and Director of Gynecological Research at the Swedish Medical Center in Seattle.

Why Now?

While there have been advances in the treatment of ovarian cancer, the same can’t be said for the development of accurate methods for detecting ovarian cancer early. As a result, most cases are diagnosed once the disease has spread beyond the ovaries to other organs.

“The most common clinical tools for diagnosing ovarian cancer, CA-125 and TV sonography, are based on technologies that are more than 25 years old,” Drescher says. “We must do better.”

Fortunately, recent scientific developments are reorienting research toward early detection by shedding light not only on how ovarian cancer forms in the body, but where it forms. It is now known, for example, that a substantial number of cases traditionally referred to as ovarian cancer don’t originate in the ovaries at all. They begin in the fallopian tubes, the structure immediately adjacent to the ovary.

“There’s been tremendous progress in our understanding of ovarian cancer in the last 5 to 10 years, and it is that progress that is serving as the basis for this new Canary initiative,” Drapkin says.

Watch the video below to learn more about these new developments in ovarian cancer.

About the initiative

“Our plan is to put together a multi-disciplinary team of 20 to 30 preeminent ovarian cancer research scientists,” explains Drescher, “and provide financial resources and access to the critical specimens, samples and patients that are necessary to do the types of research we are planning.”

In order to accomplish this, Drescher, Drapkin and other co-leaders are putting together an advisory committee that will meet for the first time this fall. The group has several goals it hopes to achieve within the next year.

The first is to identify four or five clinical centers nationwide that are ready to participate in the program. These centers will be selected based on their expertise in ovarian early detection research, their ability to reach out to patients at high risk, and their ability to contribute to the development of next generation early detection tests.

Another goal includes establishing a “bio bank” that will include tissue, blood and other samples from women with very rare, very early forms of ovarian cancer that could be used in future studies.

“It is our vision to create a self-sustaining network of talented clinicians and researchers with access to critical clinical samples and patients and the infrastructure to do collaborative research,” Drescher says. “We believe it is the best path forward to getting new tests to women and saving lives from ovarian cancer.”

Canary forges partnership with University of Calgary

April 12, 2018

Canary Foundation’s new partnership with the University of Calgary in Canada took shape recently with the announcement of four early cancer detection seed grants.

The seed grants are funded by Canary Foundation and the Charbonneau Cancer Institute at the University of Calgary. Recipients of the grants come from across the University of Calgary in the Cumming School of Medicine, Schulich School of Engineering and Faculty of Science.

The work of the recipients will focus on early detection of bladder, breast, colorectal and prostate cancer.

Learn more about the teams selected for funding.

Canary remembers innovator and imaging expert Juergen Willmann

February 15, 2018

Juergen Willmann, MD, a professor of radiology at Stanford and a member of the Canary Foundation pancreatic team, died Jan. 8 in a car accident in Palo Alto.

Willmann was known for developing an imaging tool called targeted contrast microbubbles that, in combination with ultrasound, could be used to detect early tumors and target the delivery of drugs. Over the course of a decade, his lab at Stanford advanced the microbubble work from testing in animals all the way to the first clinical imaging trials in humans.

Here, some of Willmann’s closest colleagues share their feelings about his work, passion and the impact he had on the field of cancer early detection.

 

“I have been working closely with Juergen for more than a decade on the early detection of pancreatic cancer. We first met at a Canary Foundation conference at Stanford, where I had been asked to lead the Pancreas Cancer Early Detection Team. Juergen was just starting his career in radiology and had a strong background in engineering and cancer science. I had been working on biomarkers of pancreatic cancer using proteomic technology. We realized we could create an early detection test using microbubble technology and endoscopic ultrasound or abdominal ultrasound, if we could create a microbubble target that would be unique to pancreatic cancer and pre-cancer vasculature. … My lab spent the next 5 years finding and validating the target. … Together, with Juergen’s lab we were able to document the target was present in human tissue and then Juergen was able to demonstrate the feasibility of using microbubbles to detect very small pancreatic cancers in mouse models. After this decade of work, our next efforts were to move this into the clinical realm, with Juergen taking the lead on this part of the endeavor. Juergen was passionate about pancreatic cancer and early detection. He was a brilliant scientist, dedicated, and innovative.  He will be deeply missed not only by his colleagues, but by the pancreatic cancer community as a whole.  Ultimately, I hope that his collaborative work will remain a foundation for continued research in earlier detection of pancreatic cancer.”

Teri Brentnall, M.D.
Professor of Medicine, University of Washington
Pancreatic Team Leader, Canary Foundation

 

“Juergen was committed to helping advance the field of early cancer diagnostics. His work on using ultrasound imaging with targeted microbubbles will continue to have an impact for many years to come. His passion and optimism will be sorely missed. I will miss him dearly but know his contributions to biomedical science will live on.”

Sanjiv Sam Gambhir, M.D., Ph.D.
Chair, Department of Radiology
Director, Canary Center at Stanford for Cancer Early Detection
Stanford University School of Medicine

 

“A year ago I received an unexpected phone call from Dr. Juergen Willmann asking me to work with his team at the Canary Center at Stanford to make medical ultrasound more sensitive for early detection of cancer. Working closely with Juergen to adapt technologies Draper had originally developed for finding tiny hidden features in satellite images to instead seek out microscopic bubbles within cancer tumors turned out to be one of the best experiences I have ever had. His vision for enabling early cancer detection without using radiation, and his passion for collaborating with engineers like myself to pull it off, provided a sense of excitement and joy that inspired, and will continue to inspire, many of us to follow his lead until these technologies are used to help patients every day.”

Andrew A. Berlin, Ph.D.
Distinguished Member of the Technical Staff
Draper

Canary funds four collaborative studies that pair faculty at Stanford with faculty at the University of Cambridge

Cancer early detection researchers develop future collaborations on a punting excursion in Cambridge, UK in September 2017.

Canary Foundation was ahead of the cancer early detection wave when it started in 2004. Since then, academic institutions, such as the University of Cambridge in the UK and the University of Calgary in Canada, have looked to Canary for advice as they build out their own cancer early detection programs.

This year, one such collaboration is taking shape in dynamic ways. Canary’s partnership with the University of Cambridge has resulted in four promising studies that partner researchers from Cambridge with researchers from Stanford. These projects, jointly funded by Canary Foundation and the Cancer Research UK Cambridge Centre, will explore innovative ways to detect prostate, lung, esophageal and renal cancers at an early stage.

In order to receive seed grants for these projects, applications had to include faculty at both Stanford and Cambridge. By fostering this transatlantic collaboration, Canary hopes to bring outstanding academic and clinical researchers from the US and UK together to tackle some of the most challenging questions in detecting cancer sooner.

The awards were announced at Cambridge’s third annual early detection symposium on January 15. You can read more about these collaborations below or by watching the video.

“A multi-modal approach to discover novel blood-based biomarkers for early detection of poor prognosis prostate cancer”

Tanya Stoyanova, an assistant professor of radiology at the Canary Center, is partnering with Vincent Gnanpragasam, an urologist at Cambridge University Hospitals, to identify different types of tumors in men with prostate cancer. The goal is to distinguish between aggressive tumors that would require immediate treatment, and slow-growing tumors that may not need treatment immediately but could be monitored closely so that any changes in the tumor can be picked up and acted upon. Their project will use data from a number of sources including tumor DNA found circulating in the blood, protein molecules found in cancer cells, and MRI imaging of the tumor.

“Early cancer detection through transcriptomic analysis of host immune cells”

Tom Soh, a professor of radiology at the Canary Center, is exploring new ways to detect early-stage lung cancer through his partnership with Robert Rintoul, a thoracic consultant at Cambridge University Hospitals. The pair is studying the immune cells in blood samples to see if there are particular signals that could be used to identify lung cancer early.

“Levitating a sponge for the early detection of Esophageal Adenocarcinoma”

 Utkan Demirci, a professor of radiology at the Canary Center, is working with Rebecca Fitzgerald, Cambridge’s early detection program co-lead, to detect early signs of esophageal cancer. They will use a new nanotechnology developed by Demirci that separates different types of cells using a magnetic field. The technology will be applied to the mixture of cells collected from patients that are given a Cytosponge test developed by Fitzgerald that can diagnose Barrett’s esophagus – a common condition that, in some cases, develops into esophageal cancer.

 “Early detection of renal cell carcinoma using DNA methylation markers in urine”

Olivier Gevaert, an assistant professor of medicine and of biomedical data science at Stanford, and John Leppert, an associate professor of urology at Stanford, are teaming up with Charlie Massie, a group leader in Cambridge’s early detection program. They will study whether it is possible to detect the early stages of a type of kidney cancer (Renal Cell Carcinoma) using biomarkers found in urine. Their research will look at specific signals in the DNA cells called methylation.

Lung Cancer Biomarker Discovered by Canary Researchers Attracts New Interest From Academia and Industry

November 14, 2017

Team lead Dr. Samir Hanash discusses biomarker SFTPB’s journey from discovery to commercialization

Searching for a needle in a haystack. That’s how Dr. Samir Hanash described the long, intensive process of finding a blood-based biomarker to detect lung cancer. So, when the Canary Lung Cancer Team, with Hanash at the helm, discovered a promising candidate called pro surfactant protein b (SFTPB), the potential impact was tremendous, especially since there has been only one other similar discovery to date.

Early validation studies of SFTPB have been so promising that multiple parties – among them The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center and tech startup MagArray – have entered into negotiations with Canary Foundation to do further testing.

As part of a comprehensive lung cancer screening process, SFTPB has the potential to address shortcomings like false positives on CT scans as well as more accurately identify who should be screened and predict how frequently the person should be monitored.

Dr. Hanash recently discussed the discovery of biomarker SFTPB and its potential in a conversation with Canary Foundation that can be read below.

Canary Foundation: Can you explain the current state of lung cancer screening and why it is important to add biomarkers into the process?

Dr. Samir Hanash: The uptake of lung cancer screening with low dose CT has been quite modest in the U.S. and not at all in European countries. Blood-based biomarkers to determine the need for CT would represent a paradigm shift.

CF: When did your search for a lung blood biomarker begin?

SH: It began more than 15 years ago when I was at the University of Michigan.

CF: What makes it so difficult to pinpoint promising lung cancer biomarkers?

SH: Tremendous disease heterogeneity (diversity), limited availability of most informative samples for early detection, the need for in-depth high sensitivity methodology to find the needle in the haystack.

CF: At what point in the process did SFTPB emerge as a potential biomarker candidate?

SH: It emerged when we integrated data from mouse models of lung cancer with human data and lung cancer cell line data.

CF: What qualities does SFTPB have that led you to focus on it?

SH: We have subjected it to a multitude of blinded validation studies, and it came out significant for discriminating between lung cancer and controls.

CF: Validation studies of SFTPB have been very promising. What do these studies reveal in terms of the biomarker’s potential?

SH: That as part of a broader panel of biomarkers for lung cancer, it can be an effective tool for lung cancer screening.

CF: Now other groups are interested in further testing SFTPB and Canary Foundation has developed a licensing agreement to facilitate this. Why is additional testing necessary and what are the potential outcomes?

SH: There are many clinical indications related to lung cancer for which SFTPB may or may not be useful.

CF: If further studies of SFTPB continue to produce promising results, what are the next steps? How long could it be before SFTPB is used in lung cancer screening?

SH: That depends on performance in the most rigorous validation studies that meet FDA requirements.

Samir M. Hanash, M.D., Ph.D., is a professor in the Department of Clinical Cancer Prevention at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. We thank him for his insights.

Canary Foundation Awards Gift to Draper to Improve Cancer Detection, Hasten Treatment

November 21, 2016

Draper offers world-class engineering solutions to philanthropic community

Cancer kills more than 595,000 Americans annually. The Canary Foundation recently presented a gift to Draper to apply its expertise in computer vision techniques to address fundamental limitations of today’s cancer detection tools.

Advances in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and positron emission tomography (PET) scans have helped clinicians identify cancer faster than ever before. However, these tools often require optimal conditions without which cancer tissue can be missed.

“The Canary gift funds a two-year exploration of combining Draper’s expertise in the miniaturization of systems that blend optical sensing and spatial reasoning with vision-based navigation and satellite image enhancement, and applying them to medical imaging,” explained Andrew Berlin, distinguished member of the technical staff at Draper.

If successful, Berlin believes advances in computer vision techniques could help break through the noise created by less than optimal imaging conditions — confounding signals.

“Confounding signals are those that introduce features that are difficult to see through,” explained Berlin. “For example, an imager may be able to detect a signal from a cancer cell, but a lot of times that signal is confounded by signals from other parts of the body, such as bones. The signals are mixed together within a single pixel. Our goal is to use computer vision to tease apart these different features, figuring out for each point in an image, how much of the signal is due to a feature of interest, such as a cancer cell, and how much is due to other sources.”

About Draper

As an independent not-for-profit engineering research and development company, Draper focuses on the design, development and deployment of advanced technological solutions for the world’s most challenging and important problems. It provides engineering solutions directly to government, industry, and academia; work on teams as prime contractor or subcontractor; and participate as a collaborator in consortia. Draper provides unbiased assessments of technology or systems designed or recommended by other organizations — custom designed, as well as commercial-off-the-shelf.

 

San Jose Earthquakes and Avaya Partner Up to Support Canary

August 25, 2016

This moIMG_1081nth, employees from the Canary Foundation, Avaya, and the San Jose Earthquakes all came together to work on painting and decorating a fun and colorful playhouse!

IMG_1001The awesome finished product will be raffled off at upcoming San Jose Earthquakes home games in the Avaya Stadium. Raffle tickets can be purchased from the Canary Center booth before and during the games, which are on 8/24, 9/3, 9/10, 9/24, and 10/1.  At the Oct. 1 game, the lucky winner will be announced!  All proceeds from the raffle will go towards the Canary Challenge and, in turn, the Canary Foundation and its early cancer detection research and development.

 

 

Whole Foods Market Chooses Canary Foundation

July 6, 2016

This quarter, the Whole Foods Market in Palo Alto has selected the Canary Foundation as its recipient for the Nickels for Nonprofits program. When a Whole Foods customer brings their own reusable bags to the cash register, they receive a 5-cent credit. This philanthropic program, cleverly created by Whole image001Foods Market, gives customers the choice to either take his/her 5-cent credit or to donate tothe benefiting charity of the quarter. The Whole Foods Market, found at 774 Emerson Street in Palo Alto, has decided to take a stand for early cancer detection research and to serve the scientific community devoted to the cause. Canary Foundation staff will be going to the store to represent the Foundation and our purpose. The Canary Foundation will be the beneficiary of this program for the rest of the third quarter, ending Sept. 25.

What does #GIVINGTUESDAY mean to Canary?

November 13, 2015

giving-tuesday-2015

Black Friday. Cyber Monday. What do these shopping events have to do with giving thanks?

Traditionally, Thanksgiving has been a time for reflection; a time to refocus on what it means to be thankful. #GivingTuesday was the answer to the question: How do we get back to the root of what it means to give thanks.

Now in its fourth year, #GivingTuesday is a collaborative, social media inspired day of giving, fueled by those who want to make a difference. Nonprofits have the opportunity to tap into a network of social activists and promote a variety of local and national causes.

So where does the Canary Foundation factor in?

For us, #GivingTuesday is more than just giving back. #GivingTuesday is a time for us to reflect and remember those who have struggled with cancer. #GivingTuesday is an opportunity to thank our scientists who constantly push themselves to find innovative methods of detecting cancer at its earliest stage. #GivingTuesday is a moment to pause and think about all the work that the Canary Foundation has been able to achieve over the past 10 years and to be thankful that we have the ability to continue achieving the improbable.

On this #GivingTuesday, we thank you for your belief in our mission and ask that keep us in mind as you make your year-end decisions about giving.

Over $1 Million and Still Going Strong – Canary Challenge 2015

October 22, 2015

cc15-1The 5th annual Canary Challenge cycling fundraiser was held on September 26th, 2015 out of HP Headquarters in Palo Alto. As of mid-October, participants in the Canary Challenge have raised $1,155,317 towards early cancer detection research. 100% of the proceeds from the cycling fundraiser will go towards the Canary Foundation and the research that it funds.

Since it’s inaugural year in 2011, the Canary Challenge has seen tremendous growth in the number of participants, teams, and fundraising. In 2015, over 1,000 participants, 101 teams, and almost 200 volunteers came together to raise over $1 million for early cancer detection research. With each individual rider raising an average of over $1,000, more than double the $400 participation minimum, the passion that participants have for finding cancer at its earliest, must curable stage, is truly inspiring.

“The Canary Challenge is a great event because it offers the best cycling on the Peninsula with rest stops offering gourmet food and drinks, and challenging to easy routes for our incredible cyclists,” says founder Don Listwin, who rode the new Founder’s 50 Mile Route. “For our 10th anniversary year, we increased our goals and our riders passionately strove to achieve and have fun. ”

cc15-2Special thanks and recognition to the businesses and individuals who donated their time and goods to making the post-ride Village a success! Pro riders included Eamon Lucas, Freddie Rodriquez, and Liza Rachetto. Corporate Team Sponsorships this year included, Agilent Technology, Avaya, Netsuite, VMware, SAP and Juniper Networks.

A last and final thank you to the Menlo Bike Club, who fearlessly led training rides to prepare riders of all levels for the Canary Challenge routes and provided countless opportunities to learn from experienced riders such as Menlo Bike Club Leader Hani Juha.

cc15-3Individual Top Fundraisers:

Special recognition for Maren Deem – a 12-year old cycling-enthusiast, whose mother is currently battling breast cancer, single-handedly raised $33K for early cancer detection.

Maren Deem $33,502.00
Pat Gelsinger $32,651.00
Julie Kaufman $12,079.00
Steve Ciesinski $11,955.00
Larry Fox $11,211.00
Frederick Chin $11,075.00
Andrew Valentine $10,569.00
Kevin Talbot $9,400.00
LeTessa Davis $9,390.00
Chip Krauskopf $8,565.00

Top Teams:

Canary Peeps $80,200.00
Dog Pack $65,165.00
VMware & Partners $64,594
Team “I Got This” $61,409.00
Milan’s Team $45,857.00
Agilent Technologies $38,621.00
XRay Ninjas $34,712.00
RALLY $34,169.00
Team NetSuite $27,116.00
Team Aditazz $26,355.00