Personalized Medicine Using Patient Derived Xenografts (PDX) for Kidney Cancer
Background: "Patient-derived xenografting" is a technology that allows human cancers to be taken from a patient and implanted into research animals for study. Using this approach, cancer drugs and other types of treatment can be tested on the xenograft to see how well they work before...
Breathomics as a Predictor of Immunotherapy Response
Background: Immunotherapy is a common treatment for patients with advanced kidney cancer. This includes drugs that you may have heard of, such as Ipilimumab (Yervoy®) or Nivolumab (Opdivo®), which work by reactivating the body’s immune response to destroy cancer cells. Determining which patients will respond positively to...
Investigating the Role of the Intestinal Microbiome and Autoimmune Panels as Predictors of Toxicity in Patients Receiving Immunotherapy
Background: The term "microbiome" refers to all of the microorganisms (including bacteria, fungi, and other living things) that live inside and on the surface of the human body. There is growing evidence that suggests the microbiome plays a large role in our overall health and wellbeing....