News Archive

Cancer Research & Treatment = Hope

Dr. Vicki Stronge visits School
In a week when cancer was very much on the minds of many at Shawnigan, Dr. Vicki Stronge ‘94 (School House) spoke about promising advances in cancer treatments, addressing several science classes and all grade 12s on Friday, and speaking in Chapel on Saturday. 
 
Dr. Stronge is a biochemist and Associate Director of Product Management at Thermo Fisher Scientific in San Francisco, a world leader in scientific research and related products. She was raised in Nanaimo, B.C. and did her Master’s degree at the University of Toronto, followed by four years at the University of Oxford, completing her PhD.
 
In a talk to grade 12s on Friday, Dr. Stronge repeatedly stressed her “optimism, hope, and excitement” for ground-breaking cancer treatments now, and on the near horizon.
 
After talking about her time at Shawnigan, Dr. Stronge briefly discussed careers in science, assuring students that “there are lots of different careers out there that you might not even know about,” including her own career as product manager for a biotech company with 70,000 employees and $24 billion in annual revenue.
 
“We build the genetic sequences that are used in research,” she said, noting that cancer is a disease of the genes, and a very complex scientific problem, but that “your body is in most cases very good at protecting itself from cancer.”
 
Cancer has traditionally been defined and treated in relation to the affected part of the body. But, since cancer is caused by gene mutations, “what if, instead of talking about cancer regarding the tissue that’s affected – what if we talked about the mutation of the gene?”
 
The “most exciting area of research right now is using your own immune system to fight cancer, using precision medicine, AKA personalized medicine,” she told students.
 
“I think the most important thing is that precision medicine tells you when not to go on a drug: You can exclude drugs that are not effective … You can take the blood, sequence the DNA and make appropriate therapy decisions. And you can find cancer at an early stage.”
 
Chimeric Antigen Receptor T Cells (CART Cells) – “the living drug” – are truly the definition of precision medicine, said Dr. Stronge, adding that she hopes T Cells will one day become the standard instrument of clinical trials.
 
“Liquid biopsies" are also an exciting development in monitoring mutations and enabling early detection: A test done on a blood sample can look for a tumour’s cancer cells circulating in the blood, or for pieces of DNA from tumour cells (since DNA ‘sheds’ into the bloodstream).
 
Students learned about next-generation genome sequencing, which can now be done in 19 hours, the ‘All of Us’ research program, and TCGA, The Cancer Genome Atlas, comprising 20,000 tumor samples with matched normal samples.
 
“It’s a very exciting time,” she told students. “I know I use that word a lot. But this time I mean it!”
 
Did you know? The Human Genome Project was a 13-year-long, publicly funded project initiated in 1990 with the objective of determining the DNA sequence of the entire euchromatic human genome within 15 years. 
 
“It took 13 years to sequence a single gene, in the beginning. Now, it takes 19 hours. It cost hundreds of millions of dollars to complete that first sequencing. It now costs about $1,000.”

Dr. Vicki Stronge
Back
We acknowledge with respect the Coast Salish Peoples on whose traditional lands and waterways we live, learn and play. We are grateful for the opportunity to share in this beautiful region, and we aspire to healthy and respectful relationships with those who have lived on and cared for these lands for millennia.