Beyond Chemotherapy
Changing the Way the World Treats Cancer

Theranostics combines diagnostics and therapy in a single powerful approach. It has the potential to become a new standard of care for a variety of cancers, including those in advanced stages.

First, a diagnostic radiopharmaceutical lights up cancer cells on medical imaging, revealing where disease is located. Then, a related therapeutic agent is delivered to those same tumour cells. This way, clinicians can track disease in real time and deliver highly targeted radiation while sparing healthy tissue. This provides personalized care, reducing side effects and avoiding the use of ineffective treatments.

Canada remains the only G7 country without particle therapy, an advanced form of radiation that can target tumours with extraordinary precision while minimizing damage to healthy tissue. For many patients, especially children and those with cancers near the brain, heart, or other vital organs, particle therapy can reduce life-altering side effects and improve quality of life for years after treatment.

But because this technology is unavailable in Canada, patients often must leave the country during the most challenging time of their lives, separating from family, support systems, and care teams. The Princess Margaret and University Health Network are ready to change that.

With visionary philanthropic support, we will build Canada's first Particle Therapy Centre in Toronto, creating a national hub for treatment, research, innovation, and training. The centre will provide world-leading care for approximately 1,000 patients annually while accelerating discoveries that shape the future of cancer treatment worldwide.

The Princess Margaret Intelligent Surgical Intervention is advancing a new generation of AI-guided and robotic surgery that helps surgeons see more clearly, adapt in real time, and remove cancer with greater accuracy.

By combining advanced imaging, Artificial Intelligence (AI), 3D modelling, fluorescence-guided tumour visualization, and surgical robotics, the Guided Therapeutics (GTx) operating room functions like a surgical GPS. Surgeons can map a patient's anatomy in real time, identify tumours and critical structures with greater confidence, and adjust their approach as conditions change during surgery.

For patients, the impact is significant: more precise tumour removal, less damage to healthy tissue, fewer side effects, faster recovery, and better outcomes. These technologies also accelerate the development of new surgical techniques and help train the next generation of cancer surgeons.

We are redefining the future of cancer treatment by bringing homegrown discoveries directly to patients. Through our Discoveries-to-Clinic program, we accelerate therapies made at The Princess Margaret into first-in-human trials and forge innovative partnerships, including with emerging biotech companies, to codevelop the next generation of treatments.

Our work spans RNA medicine, advanced antibody engineering, AI-guided drug discovery, and newly designed, highly targeted molecules built to find and attach to cancer cells with exceptional accuracy – enabling treatments that are more precise and less toxic. We are also pushing the boundaries of cell therapy and developing personalized cancer vaccines. Together, these innovations move us decisively beyond traditional chemotherapy toward a new era of precise, targeted, and highly adaptable therapeutics designed for each patient's unique disease.