Welcome to our northern neighbors from Canada! (Especially to George Metzler for breaking the border and joining our efforts!). Not only have we started seeing some love from our Canadian photographers, but we also got some great news from The Breast Cancer Research Foundation about how they support research and education there! I wanted to share, so hopefully we can get some more great neighbors to work with us!

“The Foundation proudly supports the research work of Pamela Goodwin, MD, MSC, FRCPC at Mount Sinai Hospital at the University of Toronto.  I have included below a short paragraph on Dr. Goodwin’s current research work funded by BCRF.  We do not have an administrative chapter in Canada.  We only have one office—in New York City.  This is one of the ways we are able to keep our administrative costs so low, thereby ensuring that the majority of each donation goes to research.  A mini summary of Dr Goodwin is as follows;

Pamela J. Goodwin, MD, MSc, FRCPC – Mount Sinai Hospital, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Dr. Goodwin and colleagues are currently working on two studies with BCRF funding. The first, Survivorship in a Long-Term Breast Cancer Cohort, has been ongoing for three years.  The researchers have completed data collection for both breast cancer survivors and healthy controls, and they are currently analyzing theirdata. Because of the complex nature of the dataset, it is anticipated that this analysis will continue for at least another year. The second study is an observational study of Vitamin D in Breast Cancer in both Toronto and Los Angeles (in collaboration with Dr. Patricia Ganz). The investigators are determining the extent to which vitamin D deficiency is present in both groups of breast cancer patients, whether it is related to treatment with aromatase inhibitors (hormones commonly used to lower the risk of breast cancer recurrence) and whether a randomized trial of vitamin D supplementation in breast cancer patients is feasible. They have done all of the preliminary work to conduct this study at both centers and are currently recruiting women onto the trial – they anticipate data collection will continue to the end of 2009, with analysis in early 2010.

A commonly used diabetes drug, metformin, may be beneficial in treating breast cancer. In the coming year, Dr. Goodwin plans to study the effect of this drug on proliferation of breast cancer cells, and on biologic processes within cancer cells, in 40 women with inoperable breast cancer. The ultimate goal is to improve outcomes of women with breast cancer.”