IWK breast cancer research team investigating why N.S. death rates are highest in Canada – CBC
Research underway after a $2M donation from J&W Murphy Foundation
May 09, 2025
The IWK is launching a new research unit aimed at helping patients with breast cancer across Nova Scotia.
The idea came from Dr. Gregory Knapp, a surgical oncologist at the IWK and Victoria General Hospital who moved back to Halifax in 2020 after fellowships in New York and Calgary.
Knapp said he found it jarring to read reports from the Canadian Cancer Society that revealed Nova Scotia has the lowest survival rate in the country for those diagnosed with breast cancer.
“I realized that I was going to be doing 50 per cent of my practice focused on breast cancer, and we didn’t have provincial or even really local clinical outcomes,” he said.
