Principal Investigators: Dr Charlie Massie & Assistant Professor Olivier Gevaert
Collaborators: Mr Grant Stewart, Academic Urology Group, Dept of Surgery, Cambridge and Dr John Leppert, Dept of Urology, Stanford
Funded by: CRUK Cambridge Centre and Canary Center at Stanford Early Detection Joint Pump Priming Awards 2018
Renal cell carcinoma is the 7th most common cancer with a high mortality rate. There are currently no early detection or screening strategies for RCC, or for differentiating between benign and malignant renal masses detected by imaging techniques. Charlie Massie, Group Leader in the Early Detection Programme, will research whether it is possible to detect the early stages of Renal Cell Carcinoma using biomarkers found in urine, initially in patients with renal masses detected by imaging. The hope is that this approach will enable RCC to be accurately detected at a surgically curable stage and will prevent overtreatment of benign lesions. He is collaborating with Oliver Gevaert at the Canary Center to look at specific signals in the DNA cells called methylation.