Proposed activities
The centre’s activities encompass a wide range of disciplines and infrastructure development to facilitate the research, clinical and educational objectives of the centre’s mission. These are outlined as large scale infrastructure to support clinical and translational research opportunities, as programs within each of the six themes of the centre, and as knowledge transfer initiatives to educate all stakeholders of the centre.
Childhood Cancer BioRepository
The mandate of the The Garron Family Cancer Centre's BioRepository is to coordinate efforts to collect, classify, and distribute tumour and normal samples from all newly diagnosed children with cancer, as well as from those children who undergo surgical procedures at the time of relapse. Both live cancer cell and cell line banking, and a cancer stem cell tissue culture core will be established as nodes within the BioRepository.
This effort would be conducted in collaboration with the Division of Hematology/Oncology/BMT, Department of Surgery and Division of Pathology, Department of Paediatric Laboratory Medicine. The material collected would be critical to the success of research relevant to the Fundamental and Translational/Therapeutic Themes of the centre.
Anticipated Outcomes:
- A more efficient process to obtain a priori consent from patients undergoing diagnostic biopsy, marrow and blood sampling, or surgical procedures for a suspected diagnosis of cancer
- A sustainable mechanism by which a representative sample of snap-frozen tissue and fresh tissue is collected at the time of procedure
- A centralized facility in which DNA, RNA and protein will be extracted from tissue and cell lines and viable cell banking will be generated from the primary tumour tissue
- The establishment of a centralized correlative clinical-pathology database
- A mechanism to facilitate the distribution of samples to research labs for study
- The establishment of a cost recovery mechanism for distribution of cell lines and other tumour-derived material to sustain operating costs of the bank.
Clinical Trials Support Unit (CTSU)
The majority of children with cancer are eligible for enrollment on clinical research trials; for many diseases, the standard of care is the clinical trial. Evidence supports the contention that survival outcomes are improved for cancer patients who are enrolled on clinical trials. The infrastructure to support clinical research is expensive and comprehensive.
Currently, activities of the CTSU of the Division of Hematology/Oncology/BMT are supported in part by philanthropic donations, industry grant-contracts, case reimbursement from enrollment on COG trials, and a $1 million operating grant of Ontario Institute for Cancer Research (OICR). SickKids maintains a national leadership profile in the C-17 Research Network of the Canadian Pediatric Hematology/Oncology Directors (CCPHOD) which has recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding with NCIC Clinical Trials Group to build financial support and collaboration in pediatric cancer clinical trials. To ensure sustainability of the conduct of cancer clinical research trials at SickKids, a long-term commitment to enhance and maintain the CTSU will be made. The sustainability of the CTSU is critical to the success of the Translational/Therapeutics and Outcomes Themes of the centre.
Achievable Outcomes:
- A sustainable mechanism to support non-COG cancer clinical trials research at SickKids
- A collaborative approach to create and maintain cancer clinical trials together with external adult oncology partners as well as with other pediatric centres in Ontario (through OICR) and Canada
- SickKids is identified as a leader in clinical trials development and innovation through ongoing national and international networks and consortia
- Dissemination of clinical trials outcome data to international pediatric oncology community
- Lead early phase (I and II) clinical trials through academic or industry collaborations