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“It’s a disease where you struggle to find hope, because the diagnosis is so dire,” Bonnie Salsman says. “There’s a lot of suffering with pancreatic cancer, at least there was in his case.”

Although the couple travelled to Boston for advanced radiation treatment that Bonnie believes helped Rick live for 18 months, his treatment did not improve his quality of life drastically.

“He didn’t get a lot of really comfortable days in that period,” she says. One of the brief periods of time when Rick’s pain was manageable coincided with the birth of their grandson, Théo.

“We were able to have that joy and that period of time as a family,” she says. Before Rick died at 68, he made it clear to Bonnie he wanted her to donate money to research for pancreatic cancer. So, in 2021, and again in 2023, Bonnie donated to H����’s Faculty of Medicine to the research Dr. Jeanette Boudreau and her team are conducting into a type of white blood cells called natural killer cells.

Natural killer cells, or NK cells, are important players in the body’s immune system. They already work to kill cancerous cells, viruses, or bacteria, although sometimes cancer cells are able to evade them.

Identifying genetic mutations

Dr. Boudreau and her graduate students and postdoctoral fellows are developing ways to aim these impressive defenders at specific cancer cells, such as those populating pancreatic cancer tumours.

They’re also analyzing samples from the tumours of people in Atlantic Canada who have had surgery for pancreatic cancer, to identify which genetic mutations exist in their cancers and match those mutations to existing drugs or new drugs in clinical trials. Making those matches could provide new treatment avenues for people with pancreatic cancer, like Rick.

When deciding what type of research to support, a desire to help fund something that would make a real difference motivated Bonnie. Her first donation financed a studentship, to support one of Boudreau’s graduate students, who conduct the experiments driving the advances the lab is making.

“If you look at how some of most spectacular breakthroughs in cancer have happened, it is in the type of research Dr. Boudreau and her colleagues are doing,” says Bonnie.

“They’re not driven by how much money this is going to make. They’re driven, truly, by just trying to help humanity.”

Bonnie has a simple message to others who might be thinking about giving to cancer research.

“After you experience the devastation that various types of cancers cause, you realize how important it is to support the people who are looking for ways to help.”

She’s thankful that Rick, a retail entrepreneur and an adventurer who was able to retire early, had the chance to achieve one of his life-long goals. In 2007, he and Bonnie, with help from family and friends, sailed their boat Aisling 1 across the Atlantic.

Bonnie hopes her donation will help others get the chance to achieve their goals.

"I worked in hospital pharmacy for a lot of my career, and I have had a chance to see some of the things that have been game-changers. I know it’s possible,” she says.