Public-private partnership will develop and implement clinical biomarkers and other personalized healthcare solutions to improve outcomes for cancer patients.
“Personalized medicine” describes the use of specific patient information gathered from tumor, blood or other specimens to characterize disease subtype and to select the optimal treatment. The clinical driver behind the project is the Québec Clinical Research Organization in Cancer (Q-CROC), a multidisciplinary network of clinicians, academic scientists and other members of the medical community involved in clinical and translational cancer research, which was co-founded by the Segal Cancer Centre at the Jewish General Hospital (JGH).
“The rapid progress in clinical research enables us to decipher the underpinnings of cancer and to develop specific diagnostic tools and targeted drugs to treat specific subtypes of common cancers such as lung, colon or breast. It is critical that these new tools and medicines be deployed for the benefit of patients across Québec,” said Gerald Batist, Professor of Oncology at McGill University, Co-director of Q-CROC, and Director of the Segal Cancer Center at the JGH. “While technology has been progressing rapidly, it will be critical to prepare our healthcare system to integrate the wealth of new molecular information and educate professionals in the practice of personalized medicine.”