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calgary family donates $25 million to tackle treatment-resistant cancers
a calgary family’s $25-million donation to defeat treat...
nov 30 2023
4 minute read
dr. douglas mahoney, left, and dr. mona shafey.
brandon coelho photo, courtesy of the arnie charbonneau cancer institute/via postmedia calgary
a calgary family’s $25-million donation to defeat treatment-resistant cancers touches an emotional chord with kelly mclachlan.
as associate manager of clinical trials at the tom baker cancer centre, the 49-year-old already knew well the importance of funding research into battling the most merciless forms of the disease.
but when she was stricken two years ago by a particularly virulent form of lymphoma that attacked her bowels, the notion of a family devoting a vast treasure to bolstering care and research into immunological medicine became personal.
“(this type of medicine) saved my life, i literally owe it all to that,” said mclachlan.
“last january, i was told i was going to die, and dr. shafey and her team were beyond fabulous. how do you ever thank them? it’s such a miracle gift.”
she was referring to dr. mona shafey, director of the blood and marrow transplant program at the foothills medical centre, who oversaw mclachlan’s treatment earlier this year that saw her t-cells harvested, processed and then reinjected into her body.
it’s a process known as chimeric antigen receptor, or car t-cell therapy.
“i had literally nothing else left — a stem cell transplant wouldn’t work for me,” said mclachlan.
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months later, the woman is cancer-free and looking forward to moving her own work into the new arthur j.e. child comprehensive cancer centre next year, which will house the new riddell centre for cancer immunotherapy.
it’s named after the family whose $25-million gift is creating a hub for care and research that’s expected to be a world leader in the field of combating hard-to-treat cancers.
“it’s going to be transformative in what we’ll be able to do in calgary and beyond,” said dr. doug mahoney, science director for alberta cellular therapy and immune oncology initiative.
“it’s going to allow us to build up an area of strength we’ve built over the past five years.”
scientists manipulate patients’ immune systems to “enable them to see patients’ cancer more effectively — we can actually impart a new set of instructions to the t-cells to attack and kill (cancer cells),” said mahoney.
but to do so more effectively means having an interdisciplinary team to conduct discovery science, improved manufacturing of immunotherapies and to do clinical research that will focus on car-t therapy, he said.
“we need to build, test and learn as quickly as we can. . . . are they safe enough and are there problems we need to fix?” said mahoney.
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“this is what the riddell donation will enable us to do.”
calgary researchers hope to improve manufacture of car t-cells
hundreds of thousands of patients worldwide have already benefited from such immunotherapy, said mahoney, but researchers in calgary will seek to improve on it.
one of those strategies is to enhance the manufacture of car t-cells, he said.
“this will enable us to manufacture to much higher standards than what we have now, to a clinical grade and for different types of immuno-manufacturing,” said mahoney.
clinical trials that follow will inform further clinical trials, he said.
the physician who treated mclachlan noted the woman’s cells were sent to the u.s. to be modified for use.
“if we can do it here locally, things can be done more quickly, whereas if you send it to a company in the u.s. where those cells can be stuck in customs — it’s actually happened,” said shafey.
with more funding, more patients should be treated in calgary rather than being sent elsewhere, which was more of a reality a few short years ago, she said.
“i remember this one woman who i told she’d likely die from her tumour,” said shafey.
“she went to the u.s. (for car t-cell therapy) and is still alive today.”
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the therapy that began non-trial use in calgary in early 2021 is now treating about 30 patients a year in the city, said shafey, who’s passionate about the rewards that extend beyond patient recovery.
“that’s what we live for, it’s the most amazing when you give them a treatment and it works,” she said.
that $25-million infusion allows calgary physicians to do more on the car t-cell treatments, which have shown to result in remission or extension of life beyond a year in up to 50 per cent of cases, she said.
the riddell gift adds to a $250-million fundraising campaign that’s collected just over $200 million to further care and research at the city’s new 1.3-million-square-foot cancer centre.
mahoney said the positive effect of those donations is multi-pronged.
“local philanthropy allows us to be more ambitious in what we do and it fills the (funding) gaps,” he said, adding about $175 million of that money will go toward research.
“from a scientist’s perspective, it has a really motivating factor and it reminds us to see the forest for the trees, that we want to create positive change for humanity.”
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