TORONTO, ON — March 18, 2026. A new $2 million research project called PROBE has been funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) to explore how improving metabolic health through medicines, exercise, or surgery may help lower the risk of breast and pancreatic cancer, two cancers that remain difficult to prevent.

Led by Dr. Rayjean Hung of the Lunenfeld Tanenbaum Research Institute, PROBE brings together experts from across Canada and internationally. The team will use health data and blood samples from CanPath, Canada’s largest population health study, to develop tools that predict cancer risk and identify who may benefit most from different prevention strategies.

“We want to understand how changes in metabolic health can shape a person’s future cancer risk,” says Dr. Hung. “By studying biology, health data, and how the body responds to different interventions, we hope to find optimized ways to prevent cancers like breast and pancreatic cancer before they start.”

Today, many cancers linked to poor metabolic health are becoming more common. At the same time, traditional tools like BMI don’t give us a full picture of who is actually at risk. People also have questions about new treatments, like GLP‑1 medicines, and whether they might help lower cancer risk. Doctors and public‑health teams need better ways to spot high‑risk individuals early and offer the right support.

PROBE aims to help fill these gaps by learning how the body responds to metabolic changes and how those changes may lower cancer risk. This information could help Canadians make more informed decisions about their future health.

What is the PROBE project?

PROBE stands for Prevention of Adiposity‑Related Cancers via Biology and Evidence Triangulation. The project focuses on three key questions:

• Can GLP-1 medicines suppress cancer development? If so, what are the biological mechanisms?
• How do different intervention strategies such as GLP-1 medicines or exercise modulate biological pathways linked to cancers such as post-menopausal breast cancer and pancreatic cancer?
• Who is most likely to benefit from which intervention strategy?

And to answer these questions, the team will:

1. Study how GLP-1 medicines affect inflammation and tumour growth using established animal models.
2. Examine changes in people’s blood before and after GLP‑1 treatment, exercise programs, and bariatric surgery.
3. Build and validate cancer‑risk prediction tools using large, longitudinal population health studies from Canada, the UK, and Europe.

Why population health data matters and how CanPath helps

Large, long‑term health studies help researchers understand risk across many different people and communities. They make it possible to test whether new prediction tools work for people of different ages, lifestyles, and backgrounds.

CanPath will provide access to Canadian data and pre‑diagnostic blood samples collected from more than 350,000 participants across all 10 provinces. Its diverse cohort, including urban and rural communities, immigrant populations, Indigenous participants, and 30% identifying as visible minorities, helps ensure PROBE’s tools are accurate and fair for many different groups.

“Projects like PROBE show why long‑term population health studies matter,” says Dr. Jennifer Brooks, CanPath’s Executive Director and a co‑applicant on PROBE. “When research teams can look at health data from many different people and communities, their findings become stronger and more useful.”

Knowledge sharing and public benefit

The PROBE team will share results through webinars, plain‑language summaries, partnerships with groups like Obesity Canada, and tools to help health‑care providers and policy makers support cancer prevention efforts. The goal is simple: give Canadians the information they need to make informed choices about their health.

Funding acknowledgement

PROBE is funded through the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) Institute of Cancer Research’s Bringing Biology to Cancer Prevention Team Grants program.

For more information or to schedule an interview, please contact:

Megan Fleming
Communications & Knowledge Translation Officer
Canadian Partnership for Tomorrow’s Health (CanPath)
info@canpath.ca

Jovana Drinijakovic
Scientific Communications Officer
Sinai Health
drinjakovic@lunenfeld.ca

About CanPath

The Canadian Partnership for Tomorrow’s Health (CanPath) is Canada’s largest population health study, following hundreds of thousands of participants across the country to support research on cancer and chronic disease prevention.