Treatments for kidney cancer have improved, but there are still many patients who ultimately succumb to the disease. New immune therapies are being developed to activate the immune system to kill cancer cells. While these are promising, these new therapies are very expensive and may cost patients $150,000 to more than 1 million dollars per year. This project aims to develop a cheaper approach using viruses to carry immune-stimulating proteins. The goal is to deliver proteins that can activate the kidney patient's own immune system to hunt down and kill local or metastatic tumor cells. This project will test these immune system stimulators in animals by injecting the therapy directly into the kidney. We will determine if stimulating different immune cells is more effective at controlling kidney cancer cells. If this is effective, it can be deployed for kidney cancer patients by injecting the therapies directly into the kidney or by injection into the blood stream. |
