Canary Foundation Announces $1 Million Gift to BC Cancer Foundation

I had the pleasure today of listening to Don Listwin, CEO of the Canary Foundation (former CEO of Openwave Systems and senior executive at Cisco), announce a $1 million grant to the BC Cancer Foundation to help aid in the early detection of cancer (with ovarian cancer being the initial platform).

Along with the gift came the announcement that Dr. Brad Nelson, director of the Deely Research Centre, has joined the foundation’s renowned team of scientists.

As someone who has seen first hand the impact of cancer, it’s nice to see someone with the finances and personal drive necessary to effect change. As Don has said many times, cancer is not so much a research problem as it is an engineering problem. One of the problems faced stems from a significant imbalance of funds directed towards early detection and prevention versus later stage treatment. The truth of the mater is that it’s expensive to work in early detection and with an uncertain outcome, industry tends to shy away because of the expense and academic researchers aren’t inclined to investigate things that may have an unpublishable result. It takes organizations like the Canary Foundation to help bridge this gap and bring researchers and industry together. Industry will come on board after they’ve seen a proof of concept, and researchers will be more inclined to investigate when they have sufficient funding so that they aren’t dependant on the next publication-related grant.

I applaud the work that Don and his team of contributors has done to date. Don’s actually an investor and sits on the board of GenoLogics so I’ve been fortunate enough to listen to him speak on a couple of occassions. He’s a very motivating speaker and I’d encourage you to listen to him if you ever have the opportunity. To top it off, he’s a Canadian as well (even though the Canary Foundation is an american non-profit corporation). Hell, he bought the San Jose Grand Prix and uses it as a fund raiser. Doesn’t get much cooler than that.

The Canary Foundation was founded in 2004 by Don Listwin, and is supported by scientists, doctors and philanthropists. It’s committed to assisting the next generation of cancer fighters on the frontlines of early detection research. Canary Foundation is collaborating with some of the leading cancer research centers in the world, including the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center (FHCRC) in Seattle; Stanford University Medical Center in Palo Alto, California; and The University of California San Francisco Comprehensive Cancer Center.