On Friday 22 May 2026 at 14:00, Mie Wolff Kristensen defends her PhD dissertation entitled “Predicting the Response to Immune Therapy in Metastatic Renal Cell Carcinoma”. 

This is a new Ph.D. project from Aarhus University, Health, which focuses on how immune cells and immune-related proteins in the blood can help predict which patients may benefit from immunotherapy. 
The treatment of kidney cancer has markedly changed during the last 20 years, with the introduction of targeted treatment and immunotherapy significantly improving survival. However, not all patients benefit from the treatment, and identifying these patients is important so clinicians can offer the right treatment to the right patients.

In this Ph.D. project, blood samples from patients with metastatic kidney cancer, collected before and during immunotherapy, were examined for various immune cells and immune-related proteins, and tumor tissue sections were characterized for different immune cell populations. Afterward, it was examined whether these potential biomarkers could help predict if patients benefited from immunotherapy.
Overall, the project contributes to identifying several biomarkers that could potentially help predict whether patients benefit from immunotherapy.

The summary is written by the PhD student.

The defence is public and takes place in Bartholin Auditorium, Aarhus University. Please see the press release for more information. 

Contact

PhD student Mie Wolff Kristensen
Mail: au481504@biomed.au.dk 
Phone: +45 30296386

Read full press release