6 March 2014

On February 19, three Université de Sherbrooke researchers received a total of $360 000 in grants from the Cancer Research Society (CRS) for their respective research projects.

The grants, worth $120 000 each, were awarded to professors Robert Day, Nicolas Gévry and Luc Gaudreau.

Mario Chevrette, Luc R. Gaudreau, Robert Sabbagh, Nicolas Gévry, Robert Day, Serge Jandl, Luce Samoissette, and Andy Chabot

The work of Professor Day, who is also a researcher at the Centre de recherche du CHUS research centre, focuses on prostate cancer screening. He and his team have been looking at PACE4, an enzyme that becomes overexpressed in the presence of prostate cancer. Using this enzyme, Professor Day hopes to come up with a new screening test to allow early detection of cancer cells and make it easier to tell whether the cancer is aggressive or benign.

Professor Gévry is interested in both prostate and breast cancer. He and his research team are trying to determine the role played by the UTX protein, which is highly present in tumour cells and seems to affect cancer progression.

Professor Gaudreau is looking into the long-term impact pollutants and pesticides have on the development of cancer, in particular breast cancer.

The three research projects were chosen out of 269 grant applications submitted in 2013 from across the country. CRS Scientific Director Mario Chevrette said the research proposals submitted by the Université de Sherbrooke received very high scientific scores.

An independent committee of experts determines who will receive Cancer Research Society grants. To ensure scientific research of optimal quality, the evaluation criteria used are excellence and scientific merit.

Sources: Université de Sherbrooke and La Tribune
Photo credit: Robert Dumont