Research

Several researchers who received funding from the Kidney Cancer Association published exciting new findings in 2024 based on their work. These papers and presentations are the important work of better understanding how kidney cancer works and uncovering new and more effective ways to treat it. Read on for a summary of these publications. New kidney cancer-specific quality of life tool…

Dr. Yuexin Xu received a 2024 Kidney Cancer Association Trailblazer Award for research on "Characterization of tumor endothelial STAB1-mediated Treg recruitment into renal cell carcinoma." Dr. Xu is a researcher based at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, Washington. This is the second research grant Dr. Xu has received from the KCA. We spoke with her about her research…

Dr. Laura Bukavina received a 2024 Kidney Cancer Association Trailblazer Award for research on "Assessing the Presence and Impact of Micro- and Nanoplastics Role in Renal Cell Carcinoma". Dr. Bukavina, a translational surgeon-scientist, is assistant professor of Urologic Oncology at the Cleveland Clinic Glickman Urologic Institute and translational science lead in GU oncology at the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine…

Dr. Mitchell Hayes received a 2024 Kidney Cancer Association Trailblazer Award in partnership with the Michael and Ina Korek Foundation for research on "Tracing the Seeds of Progression: Spatial Transcriptomic Analysis of Immunoresistant Kidney Cancer". Dr. Hayes is a Urologic Oncology Fellow at Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, Florida. We spoke with Dr. Hayes about his research and the impact…

Dr. Elizabeth Ellis received a 2024 Kidney Cancer Association Chromophobe RCC Focus Award in partnership with the Chromophobe and Oncocytic Tumor Alliance for research on "Evaluating the Response of Chromophobe Renal Cell Carcinoma to Novel Targeted Metabolic Therapies". Dr. Ellis is a Urologic Oncology Fellow at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas. We spoke with Dr. Ellis about her…

We rounded up a few research highlights from the 2024 Congress of the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO), held recently in Madrid, Spain. Belzutifan continues to outperform targeted therapy in advanced kidney cancer Belzutifan outperformed targeted therapy with everolimus in certain advanced kidney cancer patients, who experienced longer times till their tumors began growing again with the novel hypoxia-inducible factor 2a…

People with metastatic kidney cancer who already received one or two lines of treatment that included immunotherapy did not fare better when offered an additional round of immunotherapy after their cancer progressed. The results from the phase 3 TiNivo-2 trial, presented at the recent European Society of Medical Oncology (ESMO) meeting in Barcelona, Spain, compared combination treatment with the targeted…

This is a guest post by Liam Piscetelli, the KCA’s 2024 Research Intern. Liam Piscetelli For the past 8 months, I have interned with the KCA as a research intern. As a student working towards their Masters of Public Health with a concentration in Applied Epidemiology from the University of Arizona, this opportunity to work with the KCA proved to…

A retrospective analysis of just over 100 people with metastatic chromophobe renal cell carcinoma (RCC) showed that patients given first-line doublet therapy – two drugs simultaneously – had superior outcomes compared to patients given a single therapy. [ASCO 2024, Abstract 4512] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AvyqrQc9Crk&t=187s This trial, conducted by Dr. Sahil Doshi of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and presented at the 2024 meeting…

Among a trio of biomarker studies presented at the 2024 meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology, one stood out as having potential predictive and prognostic value for some kidney cancer patients. Dr. Laurence Albiges presenting a biomarker analysis of the IMmotion010 trial at ASCO 2024. Presented by Dr. Laurence Albiges of the Institut Gustave Roussey in France, kidney…