I firmly believe that one of the fundamental missions of a university is to change the world. The pandemic provided the Université de Montréal with anopportunity to reaffirm its leadership and to innovate, notably with respect to cancer research. The ability to adapt and the spirit of collegiality of IRIC’s teams definitely have something to do with that.

The strength of the Institute is to bring together under one roof all of the resources needed to accelerate the discovery of new therapies to fight cancer: seasoned scientists, an exceptional next generation, core facilities on the cutting edge of technology, a medicinal chemistry team expertly skilled in drug discovery and a proximity with a research valorization cluster, IRICoR. In close to 20 years of existence, IRIC has thus been able to achieve a few miracles for cancer patients.

At the heart of all of this success lies the generosity of many donors. In the fight against cancer, all donations, large and small, make the difference. For example, Dr. Guy Sauvageau, Principal Investigator at IRIC, recently created a Research Chair in Blood Stem Cell Chemogenomics thanks to the support of philanthropists. Those initial donations will create an important leverage effect: they will lead to getting even more funding for the advancement of research on acute myeloid leukemia (AML), the second most common blood cancer in adults.

Of course, in research, nothing is certain, there is no guarantee of results. That’s why it’s important to fund all research, both fundamental and applied, including models that are in fashion and those that are less popular. History has shown us that funding a large volume of research and a wide variety of investigators puts the odds on our side for making life-changing discoveries.  

Through its knowhow and its success, IRIC has established itself as a key player in the cancer research field. In order for it to remain as such, everyone must continue to provide support. That way, thanks to continued support from philanthropists, private enterprises, pharmaceutical companies, but also from governments, IRIC will possess all of the tools that it needs to achieve excellence.