At first glance, the connection between a group of avid motorcyclists and a team of dedicated Brock University researchers may not be immediately clear.<\/p>\n
But the two groups have united around a common goal: making prostate cancer a distant memory.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe funding provided to my research group from the Prostate Cancer Fight Foundation\u2019s Ride for Dad is extremely essential and has allowed us to pursue cutting-edge research that could have never been started without the funds,\u201d says Brock University Professor of Health Sciences Evangelia Tsiani.<\/p>\n
For more than a decade, Tsiani and team have been studying the impact of polyphenols, micronutrients that naturally occur in plants, on cancer cells. The team aims to identify new therapeutic targets and pharmacological interventions to counteract cancer cell growth.<\/p>\n
She published a study<\/a> in 2016 showing how polyphenols contained in rosemary extract halted the survival and spread of lung cancer cells by disrupting the cancer cells\u2019 signalling pathways, a series of chemical reactions that transmit information within the cell, resulting in a specific action.<\/p>\n A year later, Tsiani learned about Ride for Dad. She met Matthew King, Co-Chair of Ride for Dad\u2019s Niagara Chapter, at an event and a partnership was born. The next Ride for Dad<\/a> in Niagara will be held Saturday, June 15.<\/p>\n \u201cDr. Tsiani\u2019s research on plant polyphenols is groundbreaking and may assist men with prostate cancer to survive longer,\u201d says King. \u201cRide for Dad is always looking for new and innovative research opportunities, so we asked her to submit a proposal and we accepted it.\u201d<\/p>\n For the past 24 years, the national Ride for Dad<\/a> program has been raising money to fight prostate cancer, which affects about one in eight Canadian men and is the third leading cause of death from cancer among men in Canada according to the Canadian Cancer Society.<\/p>\n The Niagara Chapter was founded in 2010. Since then, King says 2,444 riders have raised $790,000 to fund prostate cancer research.<\/p>\n His group awarded Tsiani<\/a>\u00a0a grant of $24,000 in 2018 to investigate how plant-derived chemicals with strong anticancer effects can be used to prevent and treat prostate cancer. Tsiani has received three more grants for a total of $136,000 in funding from the Niagara chapter.<\/p>\n