By Harriet Feilotter
Despite a slow start, summer has managed to find its way to our province- it may have taken the long route, but it has more than made up for being tardy by showing up with a vengeance to start the month of July. Hope people are finding a little time to enjoy the hot weather, or perhaps thanking their lucky stars for air conditioned offices and workplaces!
OMPRN has remained busy through the spring season. The top focus in research is, well, research! For the first time in 4 years, we are so excited to have relaunched our flagship Cancer Pathology Translational Research Grant (CPTRG) program to provide funding for pathology-led research projects. If you haven’t already seen the information about the funding opportunity, check out the CPTRG webpage. We are hoping for a robust response to prove that what we told the OICR is true- that pathology-led research is an unmet need in the province, and our members are looking for a chance to bring forward their unique brand of research. We heard you tell us that research that is informed by and caters to our members is a gap in the current research ecosystem. We want to see you fill that gap with applications- we won’t be able to fund everyone, but the better the response to the opportunity, the better our ability to convince our funders that this is a burgeoning area that deserves ongoing support. So dust off your ideas, find some colleagues to partner with and submit your application!
While we resurrect the funding stream for one more round, we have not lost sight of the other critical elements of OMPRN’s mandate. We have continued to offer educational opportunities- including a follow-up EDI seminar by Dr. Yvonne Bombard, a stellar 4 part workshop through the Wellspring Cancer Support Foundation aimed at patients and their families, and an increasingly sophisticated set of in-depth learning resources on our developing website- check out our resources on the different kinds of cancer care professionals or our interviews with different cancer care professionals.
On top of all the busy, we are also in the home stretch of OMPRN’s second five-year round of funding. What’s next? We don’t know the answer yet- strategic planning at OICR is in full swing, but remains fluid as the current leadership team seeks to strike a balance that meets larger provincial needs and mandates. But here at OMPRN we feel that our time has come around- again. During the first 5 years of OMPRN’s life, the focus was on growing a network and jumpstarting pathology research. During these last 5 years, with funding cuts, OMPRN redirected most of the efforts to addressing the huge gap in educational resources for many different learners- pathologists, laboratory geneticists, patients and the public to name a few. While we will continue our focus on education and networking, reaching out to more groups including nurses, technologists, oncologists, clinical trialists and kids- we also believe that the need has never been greater for a solid push for pathology informed research. Molecular pathology is growing at an unprecedented rate- added to the rapid growth in genomic biomarkers is the unbelievably swift adoption of digital pathology and artificial intelligence to bring it all together. There is so much activity in these areas now that to not advocate for a strong funding program is unthinkable. Whether we are successful at bringing back the support for OMPRN to the original levels, or whether we integrate OMPRN mandates and opportunities into the larger OICR strategic plan, watch for more opportunities for your chosen field of expertise. Our commitment is to ensuring that the molecular pathology voice- your voice- is front and center as we move into the next funding cycle. The re-emergence of molecular pathology as a stunningly exciting field of study is something to celebrate- and we want to be there.
Happy summer, everyone. Get some rest- this next year is going to be a good one!
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