Grant: Doctoral Research Award: Canada Graduate Scholarships

Among the various types of kidney cancer, clear cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC) is the most frequently diagnosed and the most aggressive. Approved treatments are mostly agents that target excessive blood vessel formation (anti-angiogenic agents) and treatments that stimulate the immune response (immunotherapies). However, only a minority of patients respond to these treatments and many develop resistance. One of the reasons for this lack of response may be the accumulation of a fibrotic component of the tumor microenvironment, the extracellular matrix composed mainly of collagen. The rigidity of this matrix is thought to prevent treatments from penetrating the tumor and the collagen reduces the anti-tumor activity of immune cells. Also, there are no predictive markers of patient response to different treatments, thus preventing the selection of an optimal therapy for each patient. In my master's project, we modulated collagen levels in tissue xenografts from patients with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis using two agents that target the GPR84 receptor, a receptor primarily expressed by immune cells. Moreover, GPR84 expression has recently been associated with the survival of ccRCC patients. Therefore, the objective of this project is to better understand the role of GPR84 in ccRCC fibrosis, and to study the potential of this receptor as a biomarker for this type of cancer. To achieve this, we will use our newly developed model based on patient tumor-derived xenografts grown in vivo on the chorioallantoic membrane of chicken embryos. In addition, we will perform a retrospective study to correlate GPR84 expression with prognosis and response to treatments of patients with ccRCC.