NEWS

New Montreal Gene Centers Boost Basic, Clinical Cancer Research

Lou Fintor

Canadian cancer patients are expected to be among the biggest beneficiaries of two new major genetic research centers slated to open in Montreal this fall.

The formation of the two distinct but complementary centers signals a major government investment in both translational "bench-to-bedside" cancer research and laboratory genome technology. These two new endeavors are designed to make many novel gene therapy clinical trials available for the first time in Canada as well as to strengthen Quebec’s position as a major international biotechnology player.

"In order to be able to start gene therapy trials, you need to produce vectors under ideal conditions," said Pierre Chartrand, Ph.D., head of the Quebec government’s Cancer Research Network (a funding agency) and director of genomics at Montreal-based PROCREA BioSciences Inc. "These facilities are few and expensive."

Anchoring the new $8 million (Canadian dollars) Montreal Center for Experimental Therapeutics in Cancer is Canada’s first nonproprietary salle blanche ("white room")—an expensive sterile facility necessary for processing novel cell and gene therapies including those involving stem cells. Completed in July, it is expected to allow clinicians to begin treating patients by the end of this year.



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The "white room" at the Montreal Center for Experimental Therapeutics in Cancer is a sterile facility designed to process novel cell and gene therapies.

 
The new facility will also provide the infrastructure necessary for collaboration with groups in the United States and elsewhere, said Jacques Galipeau, M.D., director of the center’s Program for Cell and Gene Therapy.

"Our plan is to open the floodgates to exploring novel cell and gene therapies," said Galipeau.

The center’s private partner, Immuno-Designed Molecules, S.A. (IDM), a French biotechnology concern that provided most of the building costs, owns proprietary technology for handling ex vivo peripheral blood-derived dendritic cells. These cells are biochemically manipulated with the addition of peptides and antibodies to formulate anticancer cell therapies.

Galipeau said access to this technology and the use of the white room will streamline some cell therapy procedures and expand the number of clinical trials available to patients.

Unlike the United States, Canada and many other countries lack federally subsidized core facilities that do cell culturing and gene transfer for investigators at low or no cost, which in turn limits the availability of gene therapy trials.

Galipeau and Gerald Batist, M.D., director of the new center and chairman of the McGill Oncology Department, hope the new center will help initiate phase I and II clinical trials to validate promising therapies. In addition, they expect it to increase collaborative enterprises with Canadian and U.S. investigators as well as with groups from abroad that lack access to expensive white room facilities.



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Dr. Gerald Batist

 
McGill researchers will share the center with private sector partner Paris-based IDM. The facility is based at the Lady Davis Research Institute of Montreal’s Jewish General Hospital, a McGill University teaching hospital.

The center is being supported by a consortium of Quebec’s major research institutions: McGill University, University of Montreal, University of Quebec at Montreal, Institut Armand-Frappier, Sherbrooke University, Université Laval, and the National Research Council of Canada’s Biotechnology Institute.

Clinical Trial Niche

Batist said that the facility is also expected to provide a forum for projects that are often difficult to initiate in the United States and elsewhere.

"In other circumstances we have filled drug development and clinical trial niches that have closed in the United States," said Batist.

Because few oncologists in Canada practice privately outside academic medical centers, and because there is a system of public reimbursement, virtually all cancer patients can be identified easily and tracked for recruitment to clinical trials.

Canada has already been the site of several unique trials. These have included comparing state-of-the art chemotherapy with supportive care in non-small-cell lung cancer, testing new chemotherapeutics for ovarian cancer, and comparing high-dose chemotherapy with bone marrow transplant in bone and breast cancers, Batist explained.

Complementary Genome Center

Meanwhile, ground will be broken this September on another new gene research facility: the $30 million (Canadian dollars) Montreal Genomics and Proteomics Center (MGPC).

Designed to replace a smaller version of the complex established at McGill University Health Center’s Montreal General Hospital, the new center will be a basic science facility with core laboratories for large-scale sequencing, genotyping, mass spectrometry, and DNA "chip" technology—devices containing thousands of gene sequences that are used as probes and that can be programmed to characterize specific genes.

Among more than 50 projects involving multiple sclerosis, diabetes, heart disease, lupus, and a variety of other diseases are several projects examining the pathways of carcinogenesis. These include expanding the use of DNA chips to identify subclasses of ovarian cancer tissue based on pathology and treatment response and a similar project classifying breast cancer using novel technologies.

By focusing on the basic science applications of gene sequencing, or "medical genomics," the center is expected to complement the clinical "bench-to-bedside" work at Batist’s neighboring Center for Experimental Therapeutics in Cancer.

"We already have existing collaborations with the scientists there by providing help with sequencing and genotyping and I believe these collaborations will increase as both groups expand," said Thomas Hudson, M.D., MGPC director and assistant professor of human genetics at McGill.

Scheduled to be up and running by next September, the new MGPC will recruit more than 200 biologists, chemists, physicists, mathematicians, computer scientists, medical ethicists, and other professionals.



             
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