British Columbia happens to be one of the provinces that has contributed greatly to the genomics environment in Canada, in that they have given specific funding to Genome British Columbia. Not only is that used to co-fund Genome Canada projects, but it also has allowed Genome British Columbia to launch competitions regionally to build up capacity and expertise in areas of priority in British Columbia. For example, the city of Vancouver is home to one of the leading science and technology innovation centres in Canada. It primarily is focusing on DNA sequencing and the technologies that go with it. This allows all of the Canadian scientists to have access to this technology for their research. It's housed in the B.C. Cancer Agency, but projects in forestry, fisheries, environment, and agriculture all have access to the same technology.
This group of scientists has participated in a number of key studies. One, for instance, concerned an individual who had a tumour of the tongue. The appropriate type of treatment could not be identified. Nothing was successful. They sequenced the tumour and identified that the individual had a mutation very similar to a kidney tumour. There is a drug that could treat that and they have now used that to treat the tumour in the tongue. This is something that has come out of the research in Vancouver.