Damon Runyon Researchers

Promising new treatments for cancers of the bladder and kidney have been developed, but, as with many cancer therapies, tumors eventually develop resistance. Research has shown that cancer cells resist treatment in part via epigenetic changes—those that do not affect the DNA sequence itself but turn important genes on or off, allowing cancers to survive under therapeutic stress. Dr. Baca is using novel techniques to study the epigenomes of cancer cells from blood samples. His goal is to understand how changes in the epigenomes of bladder and kidney cancers lead to treatment resistance. This knowledge will enable the design of better treatments and drug combinations that will benefit patients with metastatic bladder or kidney cancers.