How Rob Ford’s new Cancer treatment came to Canada

It was midsummer 2010 when Yaron Panov was told he only had a few months to live. Doctors had diagnosed him with a form of malignant liposarcoma, the same rare and aggressive cancer afflicting Councillor Rob Ford. Six years later, Panov is alive and well thanks to several, small beady-eyed mice that unshackled him from the dire prognosis. Now, Ford, Toronto’s former mayor, is turning to the same treatment through a clinical trial at Mount Sinai Hospital named after Panov. The program will make Ford one of the first patients in Canada to take advantage of the U.S.-Israeli biotech firm Champions Oncology’s “TumorGraft” platform.

The “precision chemotherapy” treatment relies on mouse ‘avatars’, essentially your own personal medical guinea pig, to help oncologists identify the most effective treatment for a specific patient.

“You actually have a ‘mini-me’ with the tumor implanted in mice,” said Schwartz.

By testing various drug cocktails on the rodent, the technique spares the patient from enduring the painful toxic effects of chemotherapies. 

Their efforts led to the launch of the Panov Program trial at Mount Sinai Hospital, the first clinical site that has enrolled patients, including Ford, in the newly-opened study.

The research initiative will test just how well Champions’ approach works. It will involve testing chemotherapies on a cancer patient’s mice avatars and then applying those effective treatments to the patient.