WaveCheck breast cancer technology receives $100,000
OICR’s catalyst grant enables WaveCheck to open first partner site at MD Anderson Cancer Center in May
TORONTO, April 8, 2014 — People with breast cancer are a step closer to knowing if their tumour is responding to chemotherapy at the start of treatment, thanks to a $100,000 catalyst grant from the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research (OICR).
The funding builds upon MaRS Innovation‘s Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign for WaveCheck, which successfully raised over $50,000 from over 500 supporters worldwide in two months last fall.
Read Jane Gerster’s article for the Toronto Star about OICR’s catalyst grant for WaveCheck. This announcement was also covered in Metro, BetaKit and Council of Academic Hospitals of Ontario’s Catalyst newsletter.
WaveCheck, a clinical technique invented, refined and tested by scientists at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre and Ryerson University over 20 years, aims to show whether chemotherapy is actually destroying a breast cancer tumour at the beginning of chemotherapy treatment (in as little as four weeks), rather than at the end of treatment (typically four to six months).
In early clinical testing, the non-invasive, image-guided technology has shown promise as an accurate, efficient way to monitor tumour response, opening the door to tailored treatment.
“This is a significant step towards achieving the goal of personalized medicine. The clinical trials will confirm that information provided by WaveCheck can determine if the treatment is the appropriate one or that other options should be chosen, sparing patients the side effects of treatments that will not likely be successful,” said Dr. Tom Hudson, OICR’s president and scientific director. “If successful, WaveCheck could become a standard tool in the cancer treatment of the future.”
