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Lunch meeting was held at the Ottawa Golf & Hunt Club Scribe: Scott Vetter
Guests
- We had several guests including, Heather and Brian MacGregor and several friends of the MacGregors came to hear our speaker today, Jeffrey Parkerhouse from the Rotaract Club of Ottawa South, and John Ouellete from ORCF as well as our speaker Dr Carolina Ilkow.
Announcements
- Everyone extended good wishes to member Dave Gough who is celebrating his birthday on Dec 8, as well as one of our guests, Ed Rourke.
- Bernie Ingimundson expressed his gratitude to Ori Rooke's years of contribution to teh Golf Committee, he will surely be missed. He then announced that next year's Golf Tournament will be on Monday June 5, 2017. Never too early to start thinking about sponsors, T-sign sales or auction items.
- Pavel Bogdanov explained that he plans to expand teh Roses fundraiser, hopefully doubling its current sales for next year. He presented several ideas that he and a new committee will consider to ramp up the roses.
- Jeffrey Parkerhouse announced a Rotaract fundraiser: Coffeehouse at Rooster's Cafe on Carleton U campus, January 27. More info will be provided as we get closer.
- Ian Warrack reminded us of the upcoming Christmas Party at KS on teh Keys: Saturday December 17th, 10:00 am - 2:00 pm. Free for members and $20 for guests. Games for all ages and fun for all with great food and company... and Santa! RSVP by Monday.
- Busy schedule today, so 50/50 and Happy Bucks were not done.
Member Induction
Dan Vallillee was welcomed as a new member to our Club. Dan is a geat addition to our club and has already shown an eagerness to get involved.
Presentation To ORCF
Bernie Ingimundson and Mack MacGregor, along with President-Elect Joan Hunter, present John Ouellette from the Ottawa Regional Cancer Foundation with a cheque for $28,000.Bernie thanked Ori Rooke posthomously for his dedicated and tireless commitment to teh Golf Committee for many years. John expressed his gratitude and how much it means to the PRCF to be working with RCOS for many years. A relationship he is both fond and proud of.
Presentation from Speaker
Dr. Carolina Ilkow gave a very engaging and informative talk on her resarch and work being done by Dr. John Bell. It sounds like a paradigm shift in how we are attacking cancer. Cancer Targeted Therapies, unlike chemotherapy, exploit tumour cells' specific genetic defects; and Ottawa is an international leader in their research.
My understanding of Dr. Ilkow's fascinating presentation is that the oncolytic virus infects the tumour, multiplies and grows on it, and then destroys the tumour. The virus then continues to attack other cancer cells. The virus also focuses our own immune system to identify and fight cancer cells, turning immune cells into cancer fighters.
Sounds like science fiction, but we have expert teams right here in Ottawa actually achieving results and leading the world down this path. RCOS members aren't the brainiacs in the lab pushing this research (probably a good thing), but our fundraising is helping to make it happen.
Info on Dr. Ilkow from the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute's website: She joined Dr. John Bell’s team as a postdoctoral fellow in 2011 and quickly established herself as an outstanding researcher and leader, providing mentorship for dozens of younger trainees. Colleagues have noted that Dr. Ilkow is “bright, creative, technically gifted and has an outstanding work ethic”. While in Dr. Bell’s group, she has published a remarkable nine research papers and led a patent application.
“Working in John’s lab at The Ottawa Hospital Cancer Centre is a very unique experience,” explained Dr. Ilkow. “We’re very focused on applying our research to help patients, and we’re very motivated because we see the patients every day in the elevator.”
A major focus of Dr. Ilkow’s work has been tailoring viruses to fight pancreatic cancer. This kind of cancer is very aggressive, in part because pancreatic cancer cells are often very good at co-opting the normal cells around them to promote tumour growth and protect against chemotherapy.
However, Dr. Ilkow discovered that the molecular cross-talk between pancreatic cancer cells and these co-opted normal cells actually makes both of these cell types vulnerable to viral infection. After deciphering the key molecular components of this cross-talk, Dr. Ilkow and her colleagues developed a novel virus that is even better at treating pancreatic cancer in laboratory models, with minimal side-effects. The results were published in the prestigious journal Nature Medicine.
 [The scribe must apologize here, due to the engaging nature of Dr. Ilkow's presentation, I forgot to take a photo of her!]
Dr. Ian Warrack thanked Dr. Ilkow for her informative talk, and impressive research.
President-Elect Joan Hunter ended the meeting after rapt attention and questions to our speaker, at 1:45pm.
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