{"id":46456,"date":"2017-09-01T12:40:39","date_gmt":"2017-09-01T16:40:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/?p=46456"},"modified":"2017-09-05T10:02:54","modified_gmt":"2017-09-05T14:02:54","slug":"brock-student-researchers-to-speak-at-terry-fox-screening","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/2017\/09\/brock-student-researchers-to-speak-at-terry-fox-screening\/","title":{"rendered":"Brock student researchers to speak at Terry Fox screening"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/b>Terry Fox continues to motivate generations of lung cancer researchers, including those at Brock, to unlock the secrets of the disease.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The iconic Canadian hero has been an inspiration to\u00a0Asia Przepiorkowski, a first-year master\u2019s student in the University\u2019s Department of Health Sciences, and for the direction she has chosen to pursue with her research.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Asia

Asia Przepiorkowski, a first year master’s student in Brock\u2019s Department of Health Sciences, will speak about her research at screening of Terry Fox: A Dream as Big as a Country on Wednesday, Sept. 6 at the FirstOntario Performing Arts Centre in St. Catharines.<\/p><\/div>\n

Przepiorkowski and fellow Brock student researcher Meera Mahmud will speak about their research and Fox\u2019s impact before a screening of <\/span>Terry Fox: A Dream as Big as a Country<\/span><\/em> on Wednesday, Sept. 6 at the FirstOntario Performing Arts Centre in St. Catharines. Tickets for the free screening, which begins at 7 p.m., are available online<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

The supervisor for both Przepiorkowski and Mahmud is Brock epidemiologist Martin Tammemagi.<\/span><\/p>\n

With funding from the Terry Fox Research Institute, Tammemagi\u2019s team has created <\/span>lung cancer risk calculators<\/span><\/a> that will predict the likelihood of someone developing lung cancer within the next six years. His<\/span> model looks at a wide variety of factors,<\/a>\u00a0including<\/span>\u00a0smoking and cancer history, age and body mass index, among others.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Brock News<\/em> sat down with Przepiorkowski to talk about the inspiration for choosing this research.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Brock News (TBN):<\/strong> Can you give me an overview of the research that you\u2019ll be doing with Martin Tammemagi?<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Asia Przepiorkowski (AP):<\/strong> \u201cSince Dr. Tammemagi has just taken me on as his master’s student, we are still discussing the focus and details of the research I’ll be doing. In general, it will probably involve analyzing data Dr. Tammemagi and his team gathered in studying lung cancer screening and creating cancer risk prediction models. <\/span><\/p>\n

The next step of the research is to identify ways to improve lung cancer screening programs, such as\u00a0<\/span>Cancer Care Ontario\u2019s Lung Cancer Screening Pilot for People at High Risk<\/span><\/a>, which is now underway in three sites in Ontario.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

TBN:<\/i><\/strong> Why is lung cancer screening important?<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

AP:<\/strong> \u201cPeople aren\u2019t so inclined to take measures to prevent different diseases until they get cancer, heart disease or have a stroke. It\u2019s often only after something life-threatening happens do people think, \u2018OK, now I have to focus on my health.\u2019 Many lung cancers can be prevented by making lifestyle changes but lot of people aren\u2019t really focusing on that.<\/span><\/p>\n

Also, as many lung cancers are diagnosed in former smokers today as are in current smokers. So, even many individuals who have quit smoking may still benefit from screening.\u00a0<\/span>When most people discover or get diagnosed with lung cancer, it\u2019s almost always when they\u2019re in Stage 3 or 4 \u2014 almost end-of-life. The fact that we\u2019d be able to screen high-risk people and get them into treatments earlier to stop the disease process is really amazing.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

TBN:<\/strong> What do you hope to achieve through your research?<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

AP:<\/strong> \u201cI want our research to generate more information and understanding about how to prevent and treat lung cancer. To find any piece of information or correlation that hasn\u2019t yet been discovered, or any piece of information that will be new to the world and can add to research, hospital work or any kind of treatment is what I want to achieve \u2014 anything that can help with targeting and battling this disease.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

TBN:<\/strong> What was your reaction when you found out your research is being funded by the Terry Fox Research Institute?<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

AP:<\/strong> \u201cMy parents and I visited the Terry Fox monument in Thunder Bay. Once you\u2019re there and you see the words that he\u2019s written, where he ran and where he\u2019s been; it was just so touching. I teared up because, even though Terry was facing such obstacles and was having such a struggle in his life, he looked past that and embarked on this journey across Canada.<\/span><\/p>\n

It was so amazing that I was at the Terry Fox memorial and then, when I found out about the funding, it all fit so perfectly together. I thought this has to be a sign. This is really cool that I\u2019m doing this research. Terry Fox was such an inspiring\u00a0hero and his story is so great. I\u2019m really happy to be funded by an organization that stands by these true values and works towards a better good.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Terry Fox continues to motivate generations of lung cancer researchers, including those at Brock, to unlock the secrets of the disease.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":46458,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[36,7,188,1,4,5],"tags":[5740,5554,1696,2909,3368,5742,5739,5741],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46456"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/20"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46456"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46456\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46458"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46456"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46456"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46456"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}