Fundamental discoveries
Understanding the mechanisms behind cancers in order to find new targets.
What we are
A foundation, not a hospital
The Montreal Cancer Institute sees no patients and provides no clinical services. Its business is funding: research projects, advanced equipment, student scholarships and scientific conferences.
The work itself takes place at the CHUM Research Centre, in its Cancer axis. We provide the means, the teams provide the discoveries.
The Institute in three figures
- 1947
- First year of the first French language cancer research centre in the Americas
- 18
- Researchers trained abroad and brought back to Montreal since 2007
- 40+
- Member researchers today, from the laboratory to the clinic
The research we fund
Four areas, one question
How to attack a cancer we understand a little better each year, without putting a patient through a treatment that will not work.
Precision medicine
Choosing treatment based on the specific features of each patient's tumour.
Immunotherapy
Waking the immune system so that it recognises and destroys tumours.
Innovative therapies
Carrying laboratory discoveries through to clinical trials, in patients.
One example
382,000 dollars was enough to change a prescription
$382,000
That sum funded equipment and the recruitment of Dr Bertrand Routy, who returned from Paris in 2018.
His work showed that a simple course of antibiotics can cancel out the effect of an immunotherapy. A finding that now translates into a question asked of the patient before treatment begins.
The people doing the work
More than forty member researchers: biologists, oncologists, surgeons and engineers, gathered around a single subject.
Coming together
Events that fund actual projects
Each event carries its own signature and its own research project.
1 May 2026 · Maison symphonique, Place des Arts
Concert against Cancer
Under the direction of Alexandre Da Costa, internationally renowned violinist and conductor, Vegas Symphonique travels through the musical world of every Las Vegas era.
18 June 2026 · Club de golf de l'Île de Montréal
Golf against Cancer
Started by Gaétan Cusson, a prostate cancer survivor and keen golfer, in support of research into that cancer.
18 October 2026 · Parc La Fontaine
Défi Respire
A run organised by Dr Normand Blais, haemato oncologist on the CHUM thoracic oncology team and a member researcher of the Institute.
What is moving
Understanding
Institute, CRCHUM, CHUM Foundation: who does what with your gift
Three Montreal organisations carry similar names and fund the same cancer research. They do not do the same thing. Here is how to tell them apart before you give.
Impact
382,000 dollars, one recruitment, and a question now asked before immunotherapy
How a start up fund brought a researcher back from Paris, and how his work changed what patients are asked before treatment begins.
Science
The cancer cells that play dead, and how to hit them twice
After an apparently successful chemotherapy, ovarian cancer sometimes returns. Work funded by the Institute showed why, and led to a trial combining two drugs.
Your gift becomes a researcher's salary, a piece of equipment, a year of work
One time, monthly, or in memory of someone.