2015 Call for Research Proposals
The Westcoast Motorcycle Ride to Live – Vancouver Island is a group of volunteers who give generously of their time, effort and finances to raise funds for prostate cancer research, education and awareness on Vancouver Island and the Gulf Islands.
Funds raised from the Westcoast Motorcycle Ride to Live – Vancouver Island are administered by and through Island Prostate Centre. Jointly, grants are made to the research community as described in the following process.
Each year a Research Advisory Board – comprising RTL volunteers, community volunteers, survivors, physicians, researchers, and staff from Island Prostate Centre – receives and approves research applications. Approximately 65% of the net proceeds from the RTL funds are directed to research projects.
The deadline for applications is Friday, November 13th, 2015 at 4:00 pm.
The 2015 Grant Application Form, can be downloaded here.
For more information on our granting program, contact Island Prostate Centre at (250) 388-0214.
The 2014 projects supported from the 2014 Westcoast Motorcycle Ride to Live Granting Program are listed below:
“Immune-targeting of androgen receptor variants in castrate resistant prostate cancer”
BC Cancer Agency, Vancouver Island
Research Grant Total – $ 29,500
In Canada, prostate cancer is the most common cancer in males with more than 25,500 newly diagnosed cases each year. Despite some of the recent advances in hormone treatments, a significant fraction of patients eventually progress to incurable castrate resistant prostate cancer (CRPC). One reason patients develop CRPC is because the androgen system mutates making tumors completely resistant to even the newest hormone blockers. Thus, there is a clear need for more effective therapies for these CRPC patients. In the past 3 years, cancer immunotherapy has become the most intense area of cancer research. The principle of immunotherapy is to harness the patient’s natural immune system to fight cancer. A major barrier with immune therapies is how to educate the immune system to distinguish between non-self (the cancer cells) and self (normal cells). To solve this problem, our group proposes to test whether mutant forms of the androgen receptor could be suitable targets for the immune system. We are the only group in Western Canada with a research program dedicated to immune-based treatments for prostate cancer. For this reason, the results of our work would not only be the first of its kind, but also provide pre-clinical data to launch a clinical trial.
2014 Education Funds
Island Prostate Centre
Education Total: $22,000
Programs / projects supported through RTL funding include the Centre’s Nurse Counseling program, our Prostate Cancer Support Group and our annual Men’s Health Day where we provide FREE PSA testing to our community in addition to 13 other interactive health assessments such as blood pressure testing, blood glucose testing and neck and throat screening for cancer. In 2014, Men’s Health Day provided 607 men with free PSA tests. 25 of those men had an elevated PSA (between 4-10) that were immediately followed up with a health care professional. In essence, Men’s Health Day is saving the lives of men in our community.