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Canada Gairdner Awards honour exceptional medical research

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© The Gairdner Foundation

the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical for many parasitic diseases, including he Gairdner Foundation has Center in Boston, Massachusetts, river blindness and elephantiasis. announced the eight star found that the protein was released by The remaining winners received researchers from around the most malignant tumours, enabling Canada Gairdner International Awards world who will receive the 2014 them to grow and spread. Dr. Canada Gairdner Awards, Napoleone Ferrara, senior Canada’s most prestigious deputy director for basic sciprize for biomedical research. ence at the University of The winners, who will each California, San Diego’s receive $100 000, were honMoores Cancer Center, disoured for their innovative covered an antibody that contributions to various fields blocked the protein and of medicine, including canslowed tumour growth. cer, cardiovascular disease Their work eventually led and immunotherapy. to the commercial develOntario researcher Dr. opment of bevacizumab Salim Yusuf received the (Avastin), a drug now used Canada Gairdner Wightman worldwide to treat colorectal Award, given to Canadians cancer, renal cell carcinoma, who have shown outstanding glioblastoma and other forms leadership throughout their of cancer. Although expencareers. Yusuf, director of the sive (about $40 000 a year), Population Health Research the drug has vastly improved Institute and professor of medithe progression-free survival cine at McMaster University in of patients whose malignanHamilton, Ontario, is best cies have already spread. known for changing how car“This is a major, major diovascular disease is treated change in human medicine,” and prevented through largesays Dr. Philip Marsden, coscale clinical trials. chair of the medical review “He has conducted huge panel for The Gairdner Founinternational trials in the most dation. careful manner. He has been a A similar drug has also leader in the world and there is enormous respect for him,” Dr. Napoleone Ferrara discovered an antibody that slowed revolutionized the treatment says Dr. John Dirks, president tumour growth and led to the commercial development of a of wet macular degeneration, a major cause of vision loss and scientific director of The blockbuster cancer drug. associated with the growth of Gairdner Foundation, founded abnormal blood vessels in the eye. for seminal discoveries in their fields. in 1957 to honour research that makes a “Now there is a treatment. It’s imper“Here we have six winners who are all major impact on treating disease and fect, but before we had no treatment, so coming out of basic science and are all alleviating human suffering. this is a real benefit, a direction we making huge impacts,” says Dirks. Recognizing research that advanced might not have taken,” says Dirks. Two researchers were honoured for health in the developing world, the Another discovery with a major their individual contributions to disCanada Gairdner Global Health Award clinical impact is a therapy that blocks covering and inhibiting vascular went to Satoshi Omura, distinguished tumour necrosis factor, a cytokine that endothelial growth factor, a protein emeritus professor in the Department of contributes to inflammation and is released by tumour cells that promotes Drug Discovery Sciences at Kitasato found in abundance in the joints of the formation of new blood vessels. Dr. University in Tokyo, Japan. Omura dispeople with rheumatoid arthritis. Sir Harold Dvorak, founding director of covered the microorganism StreptoMarc Feldmann, head of the Kennedy the Center for Vascular Biology Re myces avermitilis, which led to the Institute of Rheumatology in Oxford, search and a professor of pathology at development of a successful treatment

© 2014 Canadian Medical Association or its licensors

CMAJ, May 13, 2014, 186(8)

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News United Kingdom, and Sir Ravinder Maini, emeritus professor of rheumatology at Imperial College London in the United Kingdom, found an antibody-based treatment that inhibits the cytokine. Their work enabled the development of several successful therapies for arthritis and other chronic inflammatory diseases. “This serves, in my mind, as a wonderful example of bench-to-bedside research,” says Marsden. “It was a ground-breaking discovery.”

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CMAJ, May 13, 2014, 186(8)

The two other 2014 Gairdner winners are James Allison, chair of the immunology department at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, and Titia de Lange, head of the Laboratory of Cell Biology and Genetics at The Rockefeller University in New York City, New York. Allison was recognized for introducing the concept of treating the entire immune system rather than individual tumours to fight cancer. De Lange received the award for discovering how the ends of chromosomes,

or telomeres, contribute to genome integrity. Her work has furthered the understanding of how genetic instability contributes to disorders and disease. “She has done a beautiful piece of work showing how the ends of chromosomes are protected and how they repair themselves,” says Dirks. “This is at the very heart of it, where it all begins and where diseases get started.” — Roger Collier, CMAJ CMAJ 2014. DOI:10.1503/cmaj.109-4769

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Canada Gairdner Awards honour exceptional medical research.

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