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Alumni invest in precision cancer care, trainees
By Keri Ferguson
Advanced imaging system, theranostics research boosted by Marlene McGrath and Graham Porter's $1.3M gift
By Keri Ferguson
A generous gift from Western law alumni Marlene McGrath, LLB’86, and Graham Porter, BA’86, LLB’89, is advancing cancer care research in London, Ont., and helping recruit the next generation of talent.
The couple’s $1.3-million donation supports a joint initiative between Western and St. Joseph’s Health Care London, focused on molecular imaging and theranostics (MIT), an emerging field that combines advanced diagnostics with targeted therapies.
Their gift funds an advanced imaging system and the recruitment of top trainees – both critical to accelerating preclinical research and bringing London-area patients earlier access to the most advanced cancer therapies available, building on the city’s standing as a national leader in molecular imaging and theranostics.
“We are grateful for Marlene and Graham’s incredible commitment to health care, Western and the London community,” said Western President Alan Shepard. “Their inspiring leadership builds on a tremendous legacy of service, supporting a partnership between St. Joseph’s Health Care London and Western that is fundamental to the well-being of patients locally and across Southwestern Ontario, as well as health research that benefits people around the world.”
Long-time Londoners give back, supporting health care, education
Giving back comes naturally to McGrath and Porter, having both grown up in households where community service was modelled – a value that has stayed with them into retirement.
As the couple chose to build their careers and raise their three children in London, Ont. they also made deliberate efforts to contribute to their community.
After graduation, McGrath worked for local law firms before joining 3M as in-house legal counsel and rising to senior vice-president, human resources, a role she held until retiring in 2018. She is the current chair of Western’s Board of Governors, and a past member and chair of the St. Joseph’s Health Care Foundation’s board of directors. She also serves as chair of the Ivey Business School Foundation and as a member of the Ivey Advisory Board.
Porter is a retired partner of Lerners LLP, where he worked for more than 30 years and finished his career as a member of the executive committee. As past chair of the St. Joseph’s Health Care London hospital board, Porter played a key role in launching a new strategic vision for the organization. He is also past board chair of the London Chamber of Commerce, Youth Opportunities Unlimited and Kinwell Place Non-Profit Housing Corporation.
The couple also believe it’s important to give back financially, McGrath said, adding they carefully align their philanthropy with the organizations and causes they care about.
“Western really laid the groundwork for what our life would become, and our involvement with St. Joseph’s showed us what important research and treatment is happening there,” McGrath said. “So, we wanted to give a joint gift that would benefit both organizations in the best way possible.”
The MIT program, built on the interdisciplinary efforts of Western and St. Joseph’s, was a fitting choice. For Porter, a two-time cancer patient, the prospect of improved cancer treatments was also important.
We wanted to support two institutions in our community that we see as beacons of inspiration and innovation.
Funding a new frontier for cancer care: Personalized, precision medicine
With cancer rates on the rise in Canada, improving diagnostics and treatment options is critical to helping people survive. Existing treatments, such as chemotherapy, are less precise and can harm healthy cells. Theranostics allows researchers to precisely target cancer cells while sparing healthy tissue. It also allows them to monitor how treatments work in real time.
“It’s a really exciting time for imaging and how it can advance not only cancer detection, but treatment. This is the next step for treating serious cancers and could have a major impact here and nationally,” McGrath said.
The couple’s gift addresses a key bottleneck in the MIT program. Until now, without preclinical imaging technology, new therapies could not be validated and clinical trials could not proceed. Their generous donation has changed that, funding the purchase of a tri-modality (SPECT/CT/PET) scanner. Located at St. Joseph’s Lawson Research Institute, this advanced imaging system will allow researchers to track how experimental cancer therapies behave in the body, evaluating their efficacy, safety and possible side effects during preclinical research. This technology fills a critical gap, helping to move promising discoveries from the lab to patients faster.
Additionally, the couple created the McGrath Porter Fund for Molecular Imaging and Theranostics Trainees to build research talent and capacity in cancer theranostics. The fund will help recruit graduate and postdoctoral scholars to work in the molecular imaging lab of John Ronald, PhD, professor of medical biophysics at Western’s Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry. There, they will develop new imaging technologies and targeted cancer therapies, engineer biologic and radiopharmaceutical treatments and drive further collaborations and grant funding.
Once an oncologist administers drugs into a patient, it's like a black box. Theranostics combines molecular biology with imaging to give us information we can use to build better therapies and improve patient outcomes
Professor, Medical Biophysics
This type of precision paves the way toward personalized medicine, where treatments and doses can be tailored to each patient’s unique disease.
Dr. Narinder Paul, chair of medical imaging at Schulich Medicine & Dentistry, said the ability to attract top trainees and the addition of the advanced imaging scanner will allow comprehensive pre-clinical evaluation of novel agents to address significant human health concerns.
We will now be able to offer patients across our region access to the latest therapeutic options based on deeper understanding of the nature of their individual disease conditions gained through next generation medical imaging.
Chair/Department Head, Medical Imaging
Giving hope
McGrath and Porter are gratified by the promising impact of their gift. On a recent visit to see the equipment at St. Joseph’s, they saw the scanner and heard the researchers’ excitement about what lies ahead.
“They were over the moon about the possibilities. We thoroughly enjoyed hearing them talk about what they can now do with this machine and how they can leverage its capabilities to work with other technologies,” McGrath said.
Knowing their philanthropy could help others is also a high point.
“When people were once diagnosed with stage four cancer, there was no hope. But now there is, because of these kinds of technologies. We wanted to be a part of that,” McGrath said.