While this November has been dramatic on the weather front, it has been unremarkable as far as Movember goes. I am only n=1, but I haven’t noticed any unusual facial hair growing on male colleagues, friends and family.
In fact, I think I’ve spotted only two Movember participants, but it’s always hard to be sure with public transit commuters (i.e. strangers). The less it suits the wearer, the more I assume it’s been grown for a charitable cause.
But that isn’t to suggest Movember, the annual stache-sprouting event that raises funds and awareness for men’s health, is hanging by a hair or has gone the way of the faux hawk (good riddance). On the contrary. A friend’s eye witness view of the Undie Run in Toronto (watch it here Movember Video) shows that the organizers are, ahem, on the ball, when it comes to appealing to their demographic.
Let’s shift gears (that one was more subtle) to how much progress the campaign is having. The Movember Foundation wants to see a 25 per cent drop by 2030 in the number of men dying prematurely due to prostate cancer, testicular cancer and suicide. When Movember began in 2003, it had 30 “moustaches” and now it has 5 million around the world, according to the Foundation. It has raised $911 million for men’s health, with 72.9 per cent of the funds going to related projects. Recipients of funding include the Prostate Cancer Foundation, LIVESTRONG and the Prevention Institute.
If you’d like to understand the biology behind prostate cancer, read A PSA for prostate cancer stem cells from blogger Sara M. Nolte.
What regenerative medicine research is taking place in Canada to cure men’s cancers? At BioCanRx, researchers are working with a $5 million award, ending in 2020, to develop a treatment for prostate cancer using viruses that destroy cancer cells while leaving normal cells unharmed. More details can be found here. There is also work taking place at The Ottawa Hospital in the area of Natural Killer cells to provoke the body’s own immune system to attack cancer cells. And broadly, cell therapy, like what is being conducted at Hopital Maisonneuve-Rosemont, may be used to cure testicular and other types of cancers.
At the Institute for Stem Cell & Regenerative Medicine at the University of Washington, Dr. Alvin Liu’s lab has “developed a multi-marker urine test for early detection [of prostate cancer].” The research is described as follows:
“We have generated a human:mouse chimeric antibody that targets eAGR2, a cancer-specific cell surface antigen present on many solid tumor types including prostate, pancreatic, lung, breast, colorectal, oral. Antibodies bind to eAGR2+ cancer cells and recruit immune components to kill the target as in our normal immune response. A chimeric antibody has the mouse antigen binding domain coupled to human effector domain that interacts with human immune factors such as T cells and complement proteins. We are carrying out reprogramming of cancer cells to determine if cancer stem cells exist because these cells are hypothesized to cause tumorigenesis.
“This study has uncovered a possible link between the more treatable adenocarcinoma and untreatable small cell carcinoma (found most commonly in lung cancer). Another study involves the signaling/communication between epithelial (normal counterpart of cancer) and stromal cells, the latter regulate epithelial differentiation. We found a number of stromal cell genes missing in prostate and bladder tumors.”
The California Institute for Regenerative Medicine reminds us that a treatment for prostate cancer to decrease the incidence by 50 per cent in Californians (a state with a similar-sized population as Canada) would generate a social value benefit of $53 billion.
Toronto wasn’t the only city hosting an Undie Run. Watch this Global News report on Movember supporters in Vancouver taking part in a 2 km run, although serious runners would describe that distance as brief.
