Below the Belt Award

Kidney cancer affects many Australian adults, yet consistent and effective treatments remain elusive. Unlike other cancers that respond well to targeted therapies, kidney cancer lacks such options. To bridge this gap, we must explore the cancer cells and the surrounding non-cancer cells within the tumour microenvironment. Since cancer cells do not act in isolation, they interact with neighbouring immune cells, blood vessels and normal kidney cells. We hypothesise that different cell types, their position and interactions within the kidney tumour microenvironment directly impact treatment response. This research will focus on uncovering the gene (or the active regions of our DNA) and protein (or the final gene products) in individual cells located within the kidney tumour microenvironment using 10x Genomics Xenium technology. In brief, Xenium captures specific genes, proteins and their position within thin slices of kidney tumour tissue. This captured gene, protein and cell position information is used to explore the cell-to-cell interactions within the kidney tumour microenvironment. In this manner, we will investigate the complex interactions between the different cell types and their specific positions within the tumour to understand the treatment responses of participants from the UNISON and KEYPAD clinical trials. Our short-term research goal is to identify gene and protein expression, cell location and interactions within the kidney tumour microenvironment. This information will help us understand the biological effects of the offered treatment in the UNISON and KEYPAD clinical trials. In the long term, this gene and protein expression data will be utilised to predict drug response before kidney cancer clinical trials begin.