{"id":51186,"date":"2018-05-24T14:08:01","date_gmt":"2018-05-24T18:08:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/?p=51186"},"modified":"2026-04-28T17:38:16","modified_gmt":"2026-04-28T21:38:16","slug":"ride-for-dad-helps-fund-brock-prostate-cancer-research","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/2018\/05\/ride-for-dad-helps-fund-brock-prostate-cancer-research\/","title":{"rendered":"Ride for Dad helps fund Brock prostate cancer research"},"content":{"rendered":"

What do motorcycle riders and the herb rosemary have in common?<\/span><\/p>\n

They both have the potential to fight cancer.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Telus Motorcycle<\/span> Ride for Dad<\/span><\/a>, a prostate cancer awareness and fundraising organization, has granted Brock University researcher Evangelia Litsa Tsiani and her team $24,000 to investigate how plant-derived chemicals with strong anticancer effects can be used to prevent and treat prostate cancer. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cMy research will focus on chemicals called polyphenols, derived from the plant rosemary, that have been found to have antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effects and are proposed to have anticancer activity,\u201d says the associate professor in the Department of Health Sciences.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Evangelia

Evangelia Litsa Tsiani, Associate Professor of Health Sciences.<\/p><\/div>\n

Tsiani says she is grateful to Ride for Dad and the<\/span> Prostate Cancer Fight Foundation (PCFF)<\/span><\/a> for the funding.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThis grant will enable us to investigate the effects and action of these chemicals in prostate cancer cells. Our cell work will form the basis for more research in animals and humans and eventually will potentially result in the discovery of new effective chemotherapy agents for prostate cancer.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Damian Parrent, who is an executive member of Ride for Dad, says he and his colleagues are \u201creally appreciative\u201d of his group\u2019s \u201cwonderful\u201d partnership with Brock.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI hope to see positive things coming from the experiments with plant-based components, which has a medical component to it,\u201d he says.<\/span><\/p>\n

The executive of the Telus Motorcycle Ride for Dad\u2019s Niagara Chapter presented the cheque to Tsiani\u2019s graduate students Jessy Moore and Alina Jaglanian at an event held May 17.<\/span><\/p>\n

In<\/span> previous research<\/span><\/a>, Tsiani, Moore and others on the team found that polyphenols \u2014 chemical compounds that are mostly found in plants people eat \u2014 within rosemary extract stopped certain proteins from being activated in lung cancer cells, halting the survival and spread of lung cancer cells.<\/span><\/p>\n

In this research round, Tsiani, Moore and Jaglanian will conduct similar research on prostate cancer cells.<\/span><\/p>\n

Prostate cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer in men. Despite many advances in diagnosis and treatment, prostate cancer is the second-leading cause of cancer death among men in North America.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cTherefore, there is an urgent need to find novel compounds that can be used effectively towards the treatment of prostate cancer patients,\u201d says Tsiani. \u201cMany chemotherapy drugs have been discovered by screening natural products from plants.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

The Telus Motorcycle Ride for Dad, created in Ottawa in 2000, has raised more than $27 million to the<\/span> Prostate Cancer Fight Foundation<\/span><\/a> to support prostate cancer research and awareness in the communities where the funds were raised.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Niagara chapter of the Telus Motorcycle Ride for Dad will hold its Ride on Saturday, June 16 beginning from Niagara-on-the-Lake.<\/span> Details are posted on the <\/span>group\u2019s website<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

In the eight years of the Niagara Chapter\u2019s existence, the group has raised $200,000 for Walker Family Cancer Centre construction, prostate cancer awareness campaigns and research. This is the group\u2019s second major grant in the past two years.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What do motorcycle riders and the herb rosemary have in common?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":51188,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[36,7,3319,4052,1,4,5],"tags":[6668,894,6667,6666,15125],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51186"}],"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=51186"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51186\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":51189,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51186\/revisions\/51189"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/51188"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51186"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51186"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51186"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}