Prince George, B.C. – A professor with the Northern Medical Program has been awarded $270,000 in funding over three years for a cancer care project he’s been working on.

Dr. Rob Olson, radiation oncologist and department head at the BC Cancer Agency Centre for the North and division head of radiation oncology, Department of Surgery, UBC Faculty, is the only researcher in northern B.C. to receive money from the Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research as part of its Health Professional-Investigator Program.

Dr. Rob Olson – photo courtesy UNBC

Olson will use the money to examine the use of new advanced radiation therapy techniques for cancer that has spread to the bone.

The research will compare patients’ reported outcomes of both treatment benefits and side effects and will compare differences in use and availability of these techniques across Canada starting with a partnership in the three Atlantic provinces.

“It’s great. It allows me to recruit more grad students really,” Olson tells 250News. “Specifically, it allows me to have students up here in northern B.C. It’s really good, it’s not that common that someone gets funding from Michael Smith and it’s even less common that someone outside of the Lower Mainland does.”

Olson’s research will be able to include input from rural and remote patients who would otherwise not have the opportunity to participate if a clinical trial based research project had been used.