This scientist’s PET project promotes cancer research

François Bénard is the BC Leadership Chair in Functional Cancer Imaging at The University of British Columbia (UBC) and the BC Cancer Agency Research Centre. For him, pursuing a career in scientific research was like going into the family business. His father was a medical researcher who helped establish the medical school at the Université de Sherbrooke in Quebec. François considered going into engineering or organic chemistry, but in the end, chose medicine at Sherbrooke. There he specialized in nuclear medicine. Why?  Because it played to his academic strengths in physics, biology and chemistry while satisfying his interest in caring for patients.

“I thought this was a very ‘cool’ area to work in,” he says, “because you deal with patients, diagnosis, treatment and research - - all in one job. And that job involves biochemistry and physiology, as well as the cutting edge technology needed for diagnosis.”

When Dr. Bénard finished his training and medical residency in Sherbrooke, Positron Emission Tomography (PET) scanning was still in its infancy and was mainly used for brain imaging. Seeing its potential for imaging other parts of the body and for identifying cancers, he accepted a three-year Fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, where the frontiers of PET research were being widened.

Meanwhile, back in Sherbrooke, the university medical centre installed a new cyclotron, a machine that produces the short-lived isotopes used in PET imaging. And, although he was enjoying his Pennsylvania experience, he couldn’t resist the appeal from his alma mater to return home and run the new facility.

It wasn’t exactly a cakewalk, however. They had the cyclotron, a PET scanner, and a research program in basic PET detector development - - but no funding to operate the infrastructure. “I love a challenge,” he explains. That challenge was to find key staff, secure operating funds and research grants and ensure the development of research and clinical programs. He had success selling isotopes to other institutions to generate sustainable revenues to operate the facility. He had to learn many of those skills on the job.

It paid off. During the ten years he spent there, the Université de Sherbrooke became one of Canada’s leading centres for cancer imaging research using radioisotopes. UBC and the BC Cancer Agency came calling in 2006, hoping they could persuade him to come west and put his skills to work here.

“I was happy in Sherbrooke,” he recalls. “I had great colleagues in a dynamic institution. But something inside told me it was time to move on. I didn’t want to become too comfortable, and I felt it was time to explore new challenges.”

“The offer of a BC Leadership Chair was, of course, a major factor in my decision to come to BC. But it wasn’t just because of the prestige. UBC and the BC Cancer Research Centre have internationally recognized strengths in clinical research, cancer biology, pharmaceutical and genome science programs. And there’s TRIUMF, with its many experts in radiochemistry and radiotracer production. The only gap, it seemed to me, was that they needed someone to kickstart a PET research program in oncology.”

Nuclear medicine and Positron Emission Tomography (PET) are part of the same field. As Dr. Bénard explains, “We take small amounts of a chemical compound that is able to bind to a particular target on normal or cancer cells. Then we attach a radioactive isotope to that compound, inject it into a patient, and follow its subsequent progress using the PET scanner. The radioisotopes I use are made by cyclotrons. We can measure human biochemistry in patients, as we look for arthritis, a bone fracture or a cancerous tumour, or measure blood flow to the heart or brain.”

There are many kinds of cancer; Dr. Bénard’s principal focus is on breast cancer. There are at least four (and probably more) subtypes of breast cancer. And a single patient can have cancer cells that show more than one kind of behaviour. If a tumour metastasizes the cells change again. “It’s a complex disease,” he says, “so you need tools that can explore how each tumour site will behave, and how various drugs will work on it.”

Most of the radioactive isotopes Dr. Bénard uses in his research and treatment, such as Fluorine 18, have half-lives ranging from minutes to a few hours. So he’s eagerly awaiting the opening of the BC Cancer Research Centre’s own cyclotron, designed and built by Advanced Cyclotron Systems of Richmond, BC. With that in place, he and his colleagues will be able to provide medical isotopes to hospitals and research institutions throughout the province.

Dr. Bénard’s BC Leadership Chair is supported by a $2.25 million contribution from the province’s Leading Edge Endowment Fund (LEEF). The BC Cancer Foundation has matched that, thanks to the generosity of a number of donors. Dr. Bénard also holds a senior scholarship from the Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research. His research is supported by the Canadian Institutes for Health Research, the US National Institutes for Health and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council, and he is a co-investigator on projects funded by the Canadian Cancer Society Research Institute.