Yin Xi
University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, TX·Medicine & Clinical Research
Kidney cancer is now found far more often, mostly because people get routine body scans for other reasons. Yet deaths from it have not dropped.
- Fields
Medicine & Clinical Research
Biomedical Engineering
- Topics
renal cell carcinoma
ccRCC
kidney cancer
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Jan 2027
What they work on
- Measure blood flow in clear cell renal cell carcinoma with arterial spin labeling (ASL) MRI and test whether it matches tumor regions with molecular changes that drive new blood vessel growth, such as HIF and VEGF activity.
- Quantify fat accumulation in kidney tumors with Dixon-based MRI and relate it to increased fat-making (lipogenic) enzymes linked to aggressive tumor metabolism.
- Estimate tumor cell density with diffusion weighted imaging (DWI) and compare it with tissue analyses taken from the same tumor locations.
- Identify combined MRI measures of cell density, blood flow and fat that predict aggressive ccRCC behavior, to help select patients for active surveillance.
More about the research
This suggests many slow-growing kidney tumors are treated with surgery they may not need. Doctors can instead watch some tumors over time, but they lack good ways to tell which tumors will turn aggressive. Needle biopsies can miss the worst parts of a tumor, because tumors vary from region to region.
Why it matters
Patients with kidney tumors could be spared unnecessary surgery if non-invasive MRI measures can reliably separate slow-growing clear cell kidney cancers from aggressive ones. Such imaging biomarkers could help doctors choose which patients are safe for active surveillance, especially patients with other health problems.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Joshua T Mendell
University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, TX·Biochemistry
Determine how altering dihydrouridine synthase (DUS) activity changes D modifications on tRNAs, overall tRNA metabolism and the PTMD mRNA-decay pathway in human and mouse ccRCC cells.
Erinn Rankin
Stanford University, CA·Pharmacology
Test whether FTO, an enzyme that removes m6A chemical tags from RNA, drives glutamine rewiring in VHL-deficient kidney cancer by raising levels of SLC1A5, the protein that imports glutamine into cells.
Qin Qin
University of Washington, WA·Biomedical Engineering
Develop faster velocity-selective arterial spin labeling (VSASL) MRI protocols that map cerebral blood flow and blood volume without contrast dye, using accelerated 3D acquisitions.
The school
University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center: 40 labs on PI Pages, $869M a year on research, 86 research doctorates a year.
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