Ontario Tumour Bank – Advancing Cancer Research for Over 20 Years
For more than two decades, the Ontario Tumour Bank (OTB) has been a cornerstone in support of both academic and industry research. Our reach extends throughout Ontario, across Canada, and US, and internationally.
OTB’s Research Impact
To date, OTB has supported more than 200 publications, amassing over 70,000 citations. This includes more than 70 publications in high impact journals such as Nature and Cell Press that have significantly advanced discovery cancer research that is improving patient care.
Selected publications supported by OTB:
- Geographic and age variations in mutational processes in colorectal cancer. M Díaz-Gay, W Dos Santos, S Moody, M Kazachkova, A Abbasi, et al. Nature 2025.
- The Terry Fox Research Institute Marathon of Hope Cancer Centres Network: A pan-Canadian precision oncology initiative. T Aalto, M Abacan, S Abadi, FA Aghababazadeh, Z Abbaszadeh, et al. Cancer Cell 2025.
- Identification of Tumor‐Specific Surface Proteins Enables Quantification of Extracellular Vesicle Subtypes for Early Detection of Pancreatic Ductal Adenocarcinoma. C Zhao, Z Wang, H Kim, H Kong, J Lee, JZ Yang, A Wang, RY Zhang, et al. Advanced Science 2025.
- Profiling breast tumor heterogeneity and identifying breast cancer subtypes through tumor‐associated immune cell signatures and immuno nano sensors. D Ishwar, S Premachandran, S Das, K Venkatakrishnan, B Tan. Small 2024.
- Integrated single-cell analysis reveals distinct epigenetic-regulated cancer cell states and a heterogeneity-guided core signature in tamoxifen-resistant breast cancer. K Fang, AG Ohihoin, T Liu, L Choppavarapu, B Nosirov, Q Wang, XZ Yu, et al. Genome Medicine 2024.
- Geographic variation of mutagenic exposures in kidney cancer genomes. S Senkin, S Moody, M Díaz-Gay, B Abedi-Ardekani, T Cattiaux, et al. Nature 2024.
- Multi-ancestry genome-wide association study of kidney cancer identifies 63 susceptibility regions. MP Purdue, D Dutta, MJ Machiela, BR Gorman, T Winter, D Okuhara, et al. Nature Genetics 2024.
- The Mutographs biorepository: A unique genomic resource to study cancer around the world. S Perdomo, B Abedi-Ardekani, AC de Carvalho, A Ferreiro-Iglesias, et al. Cell Genomics 2024.
- ABCC2 brush‐border expression predicts outcome in papillary renal cell carcinoma: a multi‐institutional study of 254 cases. VF Castillo, M Masoomian, K Trpkov, M Downes, F Brimo, et al. Histopathology 2023.
A complete list of research publications supported by OTB are available here.
We’d like to see your publications using OTB samples and data! Please email us at tumourbank@oicr.on.ca.
OTB’s network of users and research collaborators includes:
Ontario
- Lincoln Stein, Ontario Institute for Cancer Research, Toronto, ON
- Jane Bayani, Ontario Institute for Cancer Research, Toronto, ON
- Scott Bratman, University Health Network, Toronto, ON and Adela Bio, Toronto, ON and San Francisco, CA
- Warren Chan, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON (Canada Research Chair in Nanobioengineering)
- Bo Tan, Toronto Metropolitan University, Toronto, ON
- Krishnan Venkatakrishnan, Toronto Metropolitan University, Toronto, ON
- Rola Saleeb, Unity Health Toronto, Toronto, ON
- Hon Leong, Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, Toronto, ON
- James Uniacke, University of Guelph, Guelph, ON
- Christopher Mueller, Queen’s University, Kingston, ON
- Christina Addison, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON
- Richard Austin, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON
- Michael Farquharson, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON
- Dale Laird, University of Western Ontario, London, ON
Across Canada
- Anne‐Marie Mes‐Masson, University of Montreal, Montreal, QC
- Peter Siegel, McGill University, Montreal, QC
- William Foulkes, McGill University, Montreal, QC
- Sherif Abou-Elela, University of Sherbrooke, Sherbrooke, QC (Canada Research Chair in RNA Biology and Cancer Genomics)
- Jiuyong Xie, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, MB
- Peter Watson, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC
- Karla Williams, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC (Canada Research Chair in Oncology)
- Ryan Morin, Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, BC
USA
- Mark Purdue, National Cancer Institute, Rockville, MD, USA
- Ludmil Alexandrov, University of California, San Diego, CA, USA
International