Grant: Genomics and Personalized Health -Large-Scale Applied Genomics Res Projects

Collectively, lymphoid cancers are the 5th most common cancers in men and women and affect patients of all ages. In Canada alone, 16,000 patients are newly diagnosed, and 6,000 patients will die of the disease each year. The mortality of the disease is almost exclusively linked to disease relapse when the current standard of care fails to cure the cancer. Therefore, successful treatment and symptom control of relapsed disease represents the single most important need for patients suffering from lymphoid cancers. Unfortunately, the causes of treatment failure are mostly unknown and, as a consequence, no clinical tests are available to inform on the individual prognosis of patients, likely treatment outcomes of salvage therapy, and to guide physicians and patient to use alternative therapeutic choices, such as small molecule drugs or modern immunotherapy. Moreover, treatment relapse and associated treatment cost is a major burden for the health care system with over $315 million attributed to relapsed disease in Canada alone. This means that often times expensive, but ineffective treatments are applied without guidance by adequate clinical testing. In this project, we will focus on the most common forms of lymphoid cancer, namely follicular lymphoma, diffuse large B-cell lymphoma, Hodgkin lymphoma and chronic lymphocytic leukemia that together account for approximately two thirds of all lymphoid cancers. The main goals of our research are to develop clinical tests, alongside modern treatments available at relapse, to improve patient outcomes, quality of life, and to make tests widely available in the Canadian, publicly funded health care system. We will achieve these goals by applying state-of-the-art sequencing of patient biopsies taken at the time point of clinical relapse, performing detailed economic analyses, and engaging patients into joint decision making with their treating physicians. Our project will provide novel clinical tests in diagnostic laboratories, access to cutting-edge scientific progress, produce decision aids for patients, and help policy makers in the process of implementing personalized treatment approaches into the health care system.