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Since its inception, the Terry Fox Research Institute (TFRI) has invested in groundbreaking scientific projects that accelerate discoveries for the benefit of cancer patients. Today, this investment expands beyond our flagship basic science and translational research programs. With support from partners across the country, including the Government of Canada, we now lead two innovative projects that embody Terry Fox's spirit and unite our country to improve the lives of cancer patients through precision medicine: the Marathon of Hope Cancer Centres Network (MOHCCN) and the Digital Health and Discovery Platform (DHDP).

Learn more about our Research and our Mission and Vision.

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Digital Health and Discovery Platform (DHDP)

The DHDP is a pan-Canadian initiative co-led by the TFRI and supported by the Government of Canada. The DHDP provides the cutting-edge technological and policy infrastructure needed to share and analyze large amounts of health data generated through the Marathon of Hope Cancer Centres Network, allowing us to improve health outcomes for Canadians through the advancement of precision medicine for cancer and other diseases.

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Marathon of Hope Cancer Centres Network (MOHCCN)

The MOHCCN is an unprecedented collaboration led by the TFRI and supported by the Government of Canada that unites the country’s top cancer hospitals and research centres to create the Team Canada of Cancer Research. Just like Terry’s Marathon of Hope united Canadians under a single vision, MOHCCN unites our cancer research community, empowering them to work together to make precision medicine for cancer a reality for all Canadians.

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Newly funded research projects

Novel insights into tumour invasion mechanisms in malignant brain tumours

Some cancer cells are like octopuses. While many animals have a single, permanent home, octopuses are rather nomadic, travelling along the seafloor and adapting – changing their shape, size and colour – to hide and thrive in their new surroundings. Glioblastoma (GBM) cells are one such cancer cell, which is partly why they’re one of the most aggressive and devastating forms of br...

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Harnessing pharmacogenomics to reduce opioid-induced harm and ineffectiveness in children with cancer

When treating a child with cancer, saving their life is the primary concern. However, childhood cancers and the therapies used to treat them often come with significant pain, making effective pain management crucial. Opioids are commonly used to alleviate this pain, but their effectiveness varies widely from patient to patient. As a result, many children suffer; some don’t get enough relief,...

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Environmental oncogenomics - Investigating how air pollution promotes lung cancer at the molecular level

Lung cancer is one of the leading causes of cancer-related death in Canada, and air pollution is becoming an increasingly significant risk factor. While we know that environmental pollutants, such as wildfire smoke and traffic-related pollution, contribute to the development of lung cancer, we still don’t fully understand how or why they do so. “Climate change and its impact on human h...

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Evaluation of antibiotic prophylaxis in myelodysplastic syndromes and acute myeloid leukemia: a multicentre pilot trial

Le français suit l’anglais. Myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS) and acute myeloid leukemia (AML) are aggressive blood cancers with complex treatment challenges and significant risk of complications. Among the most dangerous of these complications is the heightened risk of infections, which significantly impacts quality of life and often leads to hospitalization and, in some cases, death. ...

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The tumour microbiome as a novel biomarker to cancer immunotherapy

  • Arielle Elkrief / Centre de recherche de Centre hospitalier de L’Université de Montréal

Le français suit l’anglais. Immunotherapy has quickly become a cornerstone in cancer treatment, offering a less-toxic approach that trains the patient’s own immune system to fight cancer. But while immunotherapy holds great promise, it’s not universally effective. For the tens of thousands of Canadians currently diagnosed with lung cancer and melanoma annually, only half r...

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Implementing a pan-Canadian standardized mass spectrometry-based proteomics approach for the analysis of clinical cancer samples: validation using archived breast cancer specimens for biomarker discovery

If your body were a factory line, DNA would be the blueprint, containing all the instructions needed to build and maintain it. Downstream you would find RNA, which acts as the factory supervisor, taking instructions from DNA and guiding the production process. Finally, you get to the workers – proteins – which actually build structures and perform specific tasks based on the instructi...

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Metabolomics standardization process

A pan-Canadian team of researchers is collaborating on new tools to help better understand cancers, thanks to new funding from the Terry Fox Research Institute (TFRI) and the Marathon of Hope Cancer Centres Network (MOHCCN).   The research consortium, funded through the TFRI-MOHCCN Technology Development Awards, will seek to standardize a cutting-edge approach using metabolomics to un...

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A modular platform for harmonized, multiplex immune profiling of MOHCCN Gold Cohorts across Canadian institutions

Over the last two decades, researchers have discovered that long-term cancer survivors often have high numbers of immune cells within their tumours. This has led them to conclude that the immune system plays an important role in combating cancer and has been the basis for the development of new therapies that harness the immune system to fight it.   Current immunotherapies are already...

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Deciphering heterogeneity of rare metaplastic breast carcinoma Gold Cohort through spatialomics

In Canada, less than one per cent of breast cancer patients are diagnosed with metaplastic breast cancer (MpBC), a rare yet highly aggressive form of the disease. Due to its rarity, MpBC has remained largely understudied, leaving patients with few treatment options and a high risk of poor outcomes.  Thanks to funding from the Marathon of Hope Cancer Centres Network (MOHCCN), a pan-Canadian...

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Cell-free whole genome and epigenome sequencing to detect and classify cancers from plasma circulating DNA

A team of researchers in Ontario and BC is hoping to transform how we detect, diagnose and monitor cancer thanks to new funding from the Marathon of Hope Cancer Centres Network (MOHCCN) and the Terry Fox Research Institute.  The team, which is led by Drs. Trevor Pugh (Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, University Health Network) and Samuel Aparicio (BC Cancer Research Institute), will use th...

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A collaborative approach to characterizing tumour immune microenvironments with multiplex immunofluorescence

A team of researchers led by Drs. Amber Simpson (Queen’s University) and Lillian Siu (Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, University Health Network) is hoping to develop a new technology to map the immune landscape of tumour cells, thanks to new funding from the Terry Fox Research Institute and the Marathon of Hope Cancer Centres Network.  The project, which is supported by the TFRI-MOH...

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Plasma whole genome sequencing in pancreatic and biliary cancers

Pancreatic and biliary cancers are some of the most challenging to treat using precision medicine approaches, in part due to the difficulty in obtaining sufficient tissue for genetic testing, which is crucial for identifying therapeutic targets.  To close this gap and advance precision for these cancers, a new pan-Canadian team led by Dr. Erica Tsang at the University Health Network and fu...

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Orthogonal pangenome sequencing to unveil genetic cancer susceptibility diagnostic odysseys: a Return of Results Working Group new technology assessment study

The first thing most doctors think about when one of their patients is diagnosed with cancer at a young age or has a strong family history of the disease is that they carry a hereditary predisposition to cancer. Confirming this suspicion has big implications for both the patient and their family members, as targeted therapies and screening protocols can be activated by identifying the mutations t...

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Investigating how the time of day impacts immune cell function to improve lung cancer treatment

Dakota Rogers is analyzing how the time of day impacts immune cell function in lung cancer treatment and the chance of the cancer spreading to improve treatments and outcomes. Lung cancer is the most common cause of cancer-related death in Canada and despite recent treatment advances that prolong life in some people with lung cancer, therapies still fail to work for a significant number of people....

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Understanding how a specific protein influences progression in neuroendocrine cancers

Nilakshi Kulathunga is studying a protein found at high levels in neuroendocrine tumours to understand how it affects cancer progression and response to treatment. Neuroendocrine tumours are generally slow-growing tumours that arise from hormone-producing cells and are most commonly found in the pancreas and intestines. Although rare, accounting for only 1 in 50 cases of cancer, the incidence is r...

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Investigating different diets and the impact on the response to immunotherapy

Anikka Swaby is analyzing how different diets affect the composition of microorganisms in the gut and the effect of nutrition on immune cells to better understand how immunotherapies work for people with cancer. A type of immunotherapy called immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICI) have been very effective for the treatment of some cancers, greatly increasing survival. However, only a minority of peopl...

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Improving cellular therapies for people with multiple myeloma

Lorenzo Lindo is analyzing why some people with multiple myeloma become resistant to immune cell-based therapies and how to modify these therapies to make them more effective, improving outcomes. Multiple myeloma is a type of blood cancer that currently has no curative therapies. Despite this, many people with multiple myeloma are now living longer after diagnosis thanks to treatment advances. One...

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Tumour-host immunodynamics of Bacillus Calmette Guérin refractory bladder cancer

Bladder cancer is the fifth most common cancer in Canada, with 12,300 Canadians diagnosed in 2023. Smokers, men and older adults are at a higher risk, and numbers are expected to rise as our population ages. “Treating bladder cancer is costly, resource intensive and often unsuccessful,” explains Dr. Madhuri Koti, associate professor in the department of biomedical and molecular scienc...

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Integrated immunotherapy for ovarian cancer

You've heard the saying, "It takes a village." This adage rings especially true in the battle against high-grade serous ovarian cancer (HGSC), the most common form of ovarian cancer. Just as a village thrives through the contributions of its members, our immune system depends on a variety of cells to fight this formidable cancer. Some cells, like killer T cells, play a more prominent role, but th...

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Porphysome nanoparticle enabled image-guided cancer interventions - III

It’s been over a decade since the groundbreaking lipid nanoparticles (Porphysomes) were first discovered in the lab of Dr. Gang Zheng’s team at the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre (PM), University Health Network. With funding from Terry Fox, the team has explored the potential of these amazing tiny, non-toxic particles to transform image-guided cancer treatments. With a veterinary cli...

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Strategies to divert malignant potentials in acute leukemia

  • Aly Karsan / Canada's Michael Smith Genome Sciences Centre

Understanding acute leukemia is like trying to solve a complex puzzle. The DNA sequence of our cells forms the puzzle pieces, but these pieces can change their appearance – and alter the overall appearance of the puzzle – depending on the colours they acquire. These colours represent epigenomic changes, and a long-funded team of blood-cancer researchers in BC believe the key to better ...

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  • Funding Programs

    The Terry Fox Research Institute functions as the research arm of The Terry Fox Foundation. In this capacity, the Institute invests and manages approximately $27 million in combined funding for discovery and translational research and training for future scientists and clinicians in cancer research.

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  • Our Research

    We know more about cancer today thanks to the biological, molecular and genomic discoveries, new technologies, tests and treatments made possible with research funding from The Terry Fox Foundation and through the translational work undertaken by TFRI. As a result, we have better ways to detect, diagnose and treat cancer today. This is helping cancer patients to live, to live longer and with a better quality of life.

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  • Terry Fox and the Terry Fox Foundation

    Terry Fox was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, and raised in Port Coquitlam, British Columbia, a community near Vancouver on Canada's west coast. An active teenager involved in many sports, Terry was only 18 years old when he was diagnosed with osteogenic sarcoma (bone cancer) and forced to have his right leg amputated 15 centimetres (six inches) above the knee in 1977.

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  • Digital Health and Discovery Platform

    The Digital Health and Discovery Platform (DHDP) is a pan-Canadian initiative that seeks to improve health outcomes for Canadians by deploying cutting-edge technologies that advance precision medicine.

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  • Marathon of Hope Cancer Centres Network

    The Marathon of Hope Cancer Centres Network is a bold vision led by The Terry Fox Research Institute and The Terry Fox Foundation with support from dozens of research and funding partners across Canada.

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Updates

Updates

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    2023-24 Facts

    • 19.1 Million Dollars for Cancer Research and Training
      Million Dollars for Cancer Research and Training
    • 49 currently funded projects for team science and research
      Funded Projects for team science and research
    • 66 Partners in Funding and Research
      Partners in Funding and Research