The Windsor Cancer Research Group has launched a new program that puts lab coats on kids and youth with cancer.
The "Cancer Researcher For a Day" pilot program invites a child or youth cancer survivor and their siblings to get a behind-the-scenes look at the cancer research taking place at the University of Windsor.
They will visit five research labs and will look at the research behind clinical trials at the Windsor Regional Cancer Centre.
Group Assistant Director Karen Metcalfe hopes the kids who take part will see the hope in cancer research.
"We want to use this as a tool, take research as a tool to empower youth through their cancer journey and encourage them to become research ambassadors and to see the great research that is going on in Windsor," she says.
Group Assistant Director Karen Metcalfe hopes the program will take away some of the fear in cancer and cancer treatment.
She also expects researchers will get something out of the program.
"People get into their groove of what they are doing, of working in the labs and focusing on the test tubes and bottles and freezers and the different machines and they sometimes lose sight of what they are doing it for."
The program is being funded by the Windsor Cancer Centre Foundation.
The first participant in the program is 13-year-old Dereck Lau, who was diagnosed with brain cancer at the age of 10.
The Lau Family (L to R) Morgyn, Rory and Dereck. Dereck was diagnosed with brain cancer three years ago. September 12, 2017 (Photo by AM800's Teresinha Medeiros)
Today, he is cancer-free.