Ontario snares Dr Thomas Hudson to lead new cancer research institute

With the appointment of Dr Thomas Hudson as the president and chief scientific officer of the recently created Ontario Institute for Cancer Research (OICR), Ontario has taken a major step towards implementing its "science to solution" vision for cancer research and the role it can play in the province's economic and social fabric. Hudson is one of Canada's leading genetics researchers and research managers with several major accomplishments to his credit, including a key role in the formation of Genome Canada, an original member of the Human Genome Project and a leadership role with the Canadian component of the International HapMap Project.

Hudson currently heads up the joint McGill Univ-Genome Quebec Innovation Centre where he will retain his responsibilities until next year. The majority of his time will be spent at OICR, however, and his first priority is leading the effort to establish a strategic plan for submission to the Ontario Ministry of Research and Innovation (MRI) by year's end. That plan will contain six or seven research priorities and provide greater detail on how the OICR plans to build provincial capacity in cancer research.

OICR incorporates the former Ontario Cancer Research Network (OCRN) and comes with an expanded mandate that goes from basic research to applied research knowledge translation and commercialization. The plan necessarily involved players from a wide range of disciplines and sectors - a complex task for which Hudson is particularly well suited.

"We're very happy to get him," says Dr Robert Phillips, former OCRN president and OICR's chief operating officer. "He has a reputation for putting together large, multi-disciplinary groups to tackle complex issues." (Hudson was not available for comment for this article).

OICR was officially announced last December with a funding commitment of $142 million over four years to continue OCRN programs and develop new space at in the MaRS Discovery District. Funding starts at $20 million this year and ramps up to $70 million in FY0-08, plus an additional $12.5 million for network programs. Funding for the Institute is expected to continue at at least that level for the foreseeable future.

"The Institute will be part of the economic engine of Ontario and will have a commercialization component," says Phillips. "Advances in cancer research will provide fundamental enhancements of understanding and lead to commercial opportunities involving large groups working together."

Once the strategic plan is developed, Phillips says OICR will focus on hiring key recruits to lead its major theme areas. Over the next three to four years, the Institute plans to hire up to 50 more researchers. Approximately half of those will be housed in the MaRS Discovery District with the other half working in affiliated research centres, comprising a virtual research network. OICR has already established an office at the MaRS facility and laboratory space for the new researchers will be contained in its next phase, slated for completion in 2009.

"We're ramping up at warp speed to get the institute up and running," says Phillips. "OICR will be a centre of excellence working across the entire spectrum from preventative through discovery through drug development."

The former OCRN will comprise a major part of the new Institute's activities. To prepare for OCRN's incorporation into OICR, several initiatives were undertaken to accelerate the development of new cancer therapies and lay the groundwork for future research. These include boosting the participation rate in clinical trials to 10% of all cancer patients in the province, establishing an Ontario Cancer Biomarker Network, implementing the Ontario Tumour Bank and extending the Ontario Cancer Research Ethics Board to cover 31 multi-centre trials.

The OICR follows plans by the former government of Ernie Eves to establish a Cancer Research Institute of Ontario (CRIO), with funding of $1 billion over 10 years (R$, April 16/03). Announced in response to a study and report by former Univ of Toronto president, Dr George Connell, CRIO was never implemented due to a change in government.

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