FREDERICTON - Over the past 10 years, staff at the Atlantic Cancer Research Institute have been busily working, examining cells and discovering other clues that may help detect cancer in its earlier stages.

But now the institute, which is located at the Dr. Georges-L. Dumont Regional Hospital, wants to take its work further -- away from the microscopes in labs and into a clinical setting.

"Canada is fortunate to have among the best (scientists) of the world," said Dr. Rodney Ouellette, CEO of the institute. "They're experts in their field so they would be experts in microbiology, genomics and they find important, relevant findings that are important for cancer. That doesn't necessarily make them experts in moving that discovery into a clinical setting."

Yesterday, Health Minister Mike Murphy announced $5 million will be given to the institute over the next five years. The money will help the institute partner with other funding agencies, expand its staff and expand its research beyond the laboratory setting.

"Building research capacity is a critical component of our provincial cancer strategy and this investment will go a long way toward addressing that goal," said Murphy.

Perhaps most importantly, said Ouellette, the money will help the institute access additional funding from various sources and allow the researchers to "play ball."

"We'd like to turn the $1 million a year into $3 million a year," he said, adding the institute would like to leverage funding from the federal government.

That would position the institute to hire additional leading-edge researchers and move projects forward.

The money may also lead to a relationship with the Terry Fox Research Institute.

Dr. Victor Ling, scientific director for the Vancouver-based institute, was in Fredericton for the announcement.

The Terry Fox institute is hoping to partner with researchers across Canada, he said, adding he hopes to return to New Brunswick to announce a partnership with the Moncton-based institute.

"The only way to defeat the challenge, as Terry Fox has clearly recognized, is not simply based on hope but based on a rational approach to the problem," he said. "Investing in research is the only way we're going to defeat cancer."

Researchers at the Moncton institute are examining how cancer cells can corrupt healthy cells in a patient's body.

Scientists are making great progress studying genes and the effects of cancer. But when it comes to examining how the findings can translate into helping patients, the work needs to move to a clinical setting, said Ouellette.

"The researcher may not be the best person in terms of trying to find the right clinical context for his discovery to fit into the puzzle," he said.

For Ouellette, advancing the research makes sense.

"It is filling a very important gap. I'm a physician so to find answers to questions of biology and not bringing it to the next step is kind of contrary to what I was trained to do."

It's particularly important because of the region's high cancer mortality rates, he added.

Roughly 4,300 New Brunswickers will be diagnosed with cancer this year, and an estimated 1,950 will die from the disease.

"This is so important taking into account Atlantic Canada shows survival rates that are the lowest in the country," said Ouellette.

Despite the funding, Murphy acknowledged New Brunswick still lags behind other provinces in terms of research money.

Nova Scotia receives $150 million a year from various sources, Ontario receives $2.8 billion, Prince Edward Island receives $6 million and New Brunswick receives $9 million, he said.

However, Murphy said he wants to create "research clusters" in Moncton and Saint John.

"We're not sitting idly by."