For the renal cell carcinoma study, Babu Padanilam, PhD, Professor and Director of Kidney Research in the Department of Urology at the Icahn School of Medicine, and Ketan Badani, MD, Professor of Urology and Vice Chair of Urology and Robotic Operations at the Mount Sinai Health System, will be exploring the role of renal nerves and nerve-derived factors in the initiation and progression of renal cell carcinoma in both denervated and wild type animal models. The research is rooted in previous studies conducted by Dr. Padanilam, which found that denervation prevented development of kidney fibrosis.
“We are going to inject cancer cells into the renal capsule or renal parenchyma in denervated kidneys, and assess whether the absence of the nerve impacts renal carcinoma progression,” says Dr. Padanilam, who joined Mount Sinai in January 2021 from the College of Medicine at the University of Nebraska Medical Center. “If we find there is no progression, we can start to look at the factors that the nerves are secreting that lead to decreased or absent progression, which could provide a target for therapeutic interventions.”
