LAWSON SCIENTIST HONOURED WITH PRESTIGIOUS NATIONAL CANCER INSTITUTE OF CANADA GRANTS

Dr. John Lewis Works to Stop the Spread of Cancer

LONDON, Ontario – The National Cancer Institute of Canada (NCIC), through the 2006 Operating Grants Competition, has awarded the Terry Fox Foundation Research Grant for New Investigators, and the Terry Fox Foundation Equipment Grant for New Investigators to Lawson Health Research Institute Scientist, Dr. John Lewis.

Beginning July 1, 2007, Dr. Lewis will receive $125,022 per year over the next three years for research, plus an additional $73,915 for equipment for 2007-2008, representing a grand total of $448,981 in NCIC new grant funding. “This newly-funded NCIC grant will be used to discover biological information about prostate cancers that affects how invasive and metastatic they will be.

This is critical information that will help to determine the type of treatment that
patients will receive,” Dr. Lewis says. “The goal will be to develop promising new ways of obtaining that information using non-invasive imaging methods.”
As principal investigator, Dr. Lewis is closely examining the key proteins that
allow cancer cells to move away or metastasize from the original tumour in an
effort to develop therapies that will improve the outlook and quality of life for
patients suffering from metastatic cancer.

“John’s research will allow us to screen for the genes responsible for metastasis which remains the crucial component in the deadliness of prostate cancer,” says Dr. Jim Koropatnick, Director, Cancer Research Laboratory Program at London Regional Cancer Program at Lawson Health Research Institute. “In his role as Hardie Chair in Prostate Cancer Research, John also provides a wonderful new link between basic researchers and academic clinicians in the prostate cancer group. Those links promise to speed biological information from the laboratory to the clinic.”

The award represents two of four new grants funded by the Terry Fox
Foundation through the NCIC for research projects for 2007-2008.

Dr. John Lewis is an Oncology Scientist with the London Regional Cancer
Program at the Lawson Health Research Institute. In addition, he is an Assistant Professor of Oncology, Surgery, and Medical Biophysics at The University of Western Ontario, and he holds the Robert Hardie Chair for Translational Prostate Cancer Research.

About the National Cancer Institute of Canada
The National Cancer Institute of Canada (NCIC) was formed in 1947 through a joint initiative of the Department of National Health and Welfare and the Canadian Cancer Society. The mandate was to bring together individuals and organized bodies with a view to reducing the morbidity and
mortality from cancer.

About Lawson Health Research Institute
Lawson Health Research Institute is the research institute of London Health Sciences Centre and St. Joseph's Health Care, London. It is one of the largest hospital-based research institutes in Canada and is dedicated to helping people liv e healthier lives by advancing knowledge of how to
prevent, diagnose and treat disease.

For more information, please contact:
Lawson Health Research Institute
Mark Wolfe, Communications Consultant
519-646-6100 ext. 61098
www.lhrionhealth.ca

National Cancer Institute of Canada
Christine Harminc, Communications Officer
416-934-5650
www.ncic.cancer.ca