The AACR-Exelixis Renal Cell Carcinoma Research Fellowship represents a joint effort to encourage and support postdoctoral or clinical research fellows to conduct renal cell carcinoma research and to establish a successful career path. 

2025 Grantee

Scientific Statement of Research

Although immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) have improved outcomes in advanced renal cell carcinoma (RCC), most patients ultimately develop resistance. Unlike other ICI-responsive tumors, RCC has a low neo-antigen burden, suggesting that alternative antigens may drive anti-tumor immunity. There is a critical need to identify the antigens driving immune response in RCC to better understand the mechanisms of ICI response and develop novel immunotherapies. Endogenous retroviruses (ERVs), genomic elements reactivated in RCC and linked to ICI responsiveness, represent a promising source of immunogenic antigens. Dr. Yochum will leverage a novel high-throughput lentiviral platform to systematically identify ERV-derived antigens and their cognate T cell receptors in RCC. Using this approach, he aims to define the role of ERV-specific T cells in native anti-tumor immunity and to characterize their contribution to ICI response.

Biography

Dr. Yochum completed his MD/PhD as part of the University of Pittsburgh–Carnegie Mellon Medical Scientist Training Program. His doctoral research focused on the role of epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT) transcription factors in lung cancer tumorigenesis and resistance to targeted therapies. He subsequently completed his internal medicine residency at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and is currently a medical oncology fellow at Yale School of Medicine. Dr. Yochum is investigating mechanisms underlying sensitivity and resistance to immune checkpoint inhibitors in renal cell carcinoma, integrating his research and clinical interests.

Acknowledgment of Support

“I am honored to receive the AACR-Exelixis Renal Cell Carcinoma Research Fellowship, which will support my research to uncover novel immune targets in RCC. This fellowship will lay the foundation for my goal of becoming an independent physician-scientist focused on RCC immunobiology and developing new immunotherapies to improve patient outcomes.”

2024 Grantee

Scientific Statement of Research

Translocation renal cell carcinoma (tRCC) is a rare, aggressive renal cancer with higher incidence in children, young patients, women, and as a secondary malignancy. Dr. Weiss seeks to leverage PROteolysis-TArgeting-Chimeras (PROTACs) to rapidly and completely degrade MiT/TFE-fusion proteins which drive tRCC, in in vitro and in vivo models, to understand how the fusions exert their oncogenic function and to discover novel therapeutic targets in tRCC. He plans to utilize unbiased genome-scale screening techniques to identify therapeutic targets among genes that can functionally substitute for MiT/TFE-fusions, and endogenous regulators and small molecule degraders of MiT/TFE-fusions that can phenocopy fusion-protein loss.

Biography

Dr. Weiss is a pediatric hematology/oncology fellow at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Boston Children’s Cancer and Blood Disorders Center. He earned his medical and doctoral degrees (MD/PhD) from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, with research focused on hematopoietic differentiation, and epigenetic mechanisms underlying chromatin compaction. He completed his residency in the Boston Combined Residency Program in Pediatrics, Accelerated Research Pathway. Dr. Weiss is currently researching the molecular pathogenesis of tRCC and other MiT/TFE-fusion driven cancers. His research and clinical interests are in pediatric renal tumors and rare cancers that affect adolescent and young adult patients.

Acknowledgment of Support

“I am thrilled to be awarded the AACR-Exelixis Renal Cell Carcinoma Research Fellowship, which provides essential funding to advance my research on translocation renal cell carcinoma and supports my development as an independent physician-scientist. This opportunity significantly contributes to my goal of improving outcomes for pediatric and adolescent/young adult cancer patients.”