
Ninadh D’Costa, PhD student in Dr. Alan So's lab, was awarded the Kidney Cancer Research Network of Canada (KCRNC)-SOPER Foundation Grant for her project titled “Identification and validation of a comprehensive gene signature to determine treatment response and guide precision oncology on patients with metastatic clear-cell renal cell carcinoma”.
Kidney cancer confers considerable mortality and morbidity in Canadian patients. Advancement in treatment has substantially improved patient outcome, but further improvement in treatment strategy is imperative to improve the quality of life and disease progression. Her research will use a novel panel of 66-genes which she has previously identified to enable sub-classification of these patients into distinct groups based on their genetic makeup, towards personalizing therapies and optimizing treatment allocation, with the goal of improving therapy outcome in advanced kidney cancer patients.