March 9, 2009

Recognizing Ontario Breakthroughs In Stem Cell Research

Minister of Research and Innovation John Wilkinson
Statement to the Legislative Assembly

 

Check against delivery.

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Mr. Speaker, I rise in the house today to ask all sides of this House to join me in celebrating the announcement of an Ontario-led research breakthrough – what experts are calling an “elegant discovery.”

Humanity hungers for cures to the diseases and injuries that plague us still.    

Today, with increasing confidence we can imagine a world where we will unlock the power of our own body to cure diseases like diabetes, cancer, cystic fibrosis, kidney and heart disease, to reverse the devastation of injuries to the brain and spinal cord by repairing or even one day growing replacement organs and tissues derived from our own cells.

We are on the cusp of a turning point in history.

An organ damaged by disease or injury would no longer mean a death sentence or a lifelong disability.  

And a person’s immune system wouldn’t reject the new organ or tissue because they would not be foreign to your body, because instead they would arise from your own body.

This is the promise of “regenerative medicine.”  In my opinion it will increasingly become part of our health care future because of stem cells – special cells found within our bodies that can and do turn themselves into any part of the body.

Already stem cells are being used in bone marrow transplants to treat leukemia, but the field is still in its infancy.

Mr. Speaker, due to the wise investments of successive governments, Ontario is known as a world leader in stem cell research. In fact it was Ontario scientists – Doctors Ernest McCulloch and James Till of the University of Toronto – who discovered stem cells, back in 1961.

Ontario has built upon this discovery, developing a strong foundation in stem cell research, from Tony Pawson unlocking cell biology, to John Dick discovering cancer stem cells, to Janet Rossant developing induced pluripotent stem cells.

And now we have a new major breakthrough we all can be proud of.

Dr. Andras Nagy at the Samuel Lunenfeld Research Institute at Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto has led a team of researchers who have found a new, safer way to create stem cells from the most ready and accessible of sources, our own skin cells.

They’ve just published their findings in the internationally respected science journal, Nature.

Mr. Speaker, let me give you an idea of how important their discovery is. Not only did our papers here cover this as a front page story, but it was in the news in Washington and California and as far afield as Ireland, England and Japan.

Mr. Speaker, the discovery made by Dr. Nagy and his team represents an enormous contribution to the future of health science.

What’s more, Dr. Nagy and his team are among the 10,000 scientists, clinical investigators and other researchers who make Ontario the largest hub of biomedical activity in Canada and the fourth largest biomedical research centre in North America.

As part of this cluster Ontario is supporting other exciting stem cell research initiatives.

We have committed $357 million over five years to the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research, which has made stem cell research a focal point of its work.

Through the institute, we have invested $30 million to support the International Cancer Genome Consortium, through which scientists around the world are working together to unlock the genome of the 50 most common cancer tumours that plague humanity. It’s knowledge that could lead to innovative new treatments or even cures.

Ontario will serve as the world headquarters of this global effort.

Ontario has also been tasked to serve as the global data centre. In essence, we are creating the largest health informatics database in history.

Mr. Speaker, Ontario can’t fund research all alone. We need all levels of government to support our leading-edge researchers so they can rise to the challenge of overcoming diseases like cancer, diabetes and heart disease.

Mr. Speaker, research and innovation constitute a vital component of Ontario’s five-point economic plan.

Premier McGuinty created the Ministry of Research and Innovation to focus our government’s commitment to make innovation the driving force of Ontario’s economy.

Through Ontario’s $3 billion Innovation Agenda we are building a strong environment for innovation in Ontario. We are supporting world-class researchers, as well as industries and companies that forge a path between Ontario innovation and the global marketplace.

That means top researchers will stay in Ontario, and breakthroughs like Dr. Nagy’s will keep happening here. And as we have seen, history will continue to be made, right here in Ontario.

Thank you.