It has been an exciting summer for all of us at the Terry Fox Research Institute!

In Moncton, New Brunswick on July 11 the Minister of Health Ginette Petitpas Taylor formally announced the Government of Canada’s $150-million investment over the next five years for the creation of the Marathon of Hope Cancer Centres network. It was a momentous day for cancer research in Canada! It was my great pleasure to personally thank her on behalf of our research community and to let her know that this investment will allow us to continue working towards Terry's dream of a world without cancer.

We celebrated this great news with fellow Terry Foxers, including Terry Fox run organizer Pam Damoff, parliamentary secretary to the health minister. Pam has been a strong supporter of this initiative over the past few years and we sincerely thank her for her leadership and commitment. Some of our research and funding partners attended as well as Terry’s brother Darrell Fox and supporters for the Terry Fox Foundation. We thank the Atlantic Cancer Research Institute, its scientific director Dr. Rodney Ouellette, and the Université de Moncton for being warm and welcoming hosts.

By joining forces and working together to accelerate precision medicine across Canada, we are creating the Team Canada of Cancer Research. Over the next five years, we will create a high-quality, shareable dataset of 15,000 cancer cases with genomic, imaging, clinical and outcome data. This data set will get us closer to being able to deliver the right treatment at the right time for every cancer patient in Canada.

The federal investment is to be matched by the network partners and foundations. This means a total of $300-million new dollars will be invested in precision medicine over the next five years. We are excited by this matching challenge and know that our supporters will rise to the challenge, like Terry did in 1980 with his Marathon of Hope.

The Moncton announcement follows two other recent, notable milestones for TFRI. On April 12 in St. John’s, we marked the 39th anniversary of the Terry Fox’s Marathon of Hope by officially kicking off the Marathon of Hope Cancer Centres network at the Terry Fox statue. In May, we were in Montreal with our artificial intelligence (AI) partner Imagia to receive an award of up to $49-million from the Ministry of Innovation, Science and Economic Development to form the Digital Health and Discovery Platform, the AI platform that will empower the MOHCC network.

We continue to work with federal government officials and our partners to finalize details related to the funding of the network, its activities and deliverables for the five-year funding period. We are also focused on developing the governance model for the network, designing a designation process and approving developmental projects for consortia that will be joining the network.

Find out more about the network and stay informed by visiting www.marathonofhopecancercentres.ca