Urologic Oncology Research

About Our Program

The Urologic Oncology program within the Division of Hematology/Oncology at BIDMC, led by Drs. Steven Balk, Glenn Bubley, David Einstein and David McDermott, is involved in clinical, basic and translational research activities. Drs. Bubley and Einstein are responsible for the clinical research activities outside of kidney cancer, which is led by Dr. McDermott.

Areas of ongoing clinical and translational efforts include: 

• Understanding and characterizing the immune response to prostate and kidney cancers 
• Testing the role of neoadjuvant hormonal therapies prior to surgery and understanding mechanisms of resistance to this approach 
• Harnessing the ReGIFT postmortem research tissue collection program to understand tumor heterogeneity and resistance to therapies and characterizing biological drivers (kidney and testicular cancers) 
• Integrating novel patient-focused endpoints into prostate and kidney cancers to help clinicians and patients weigh trade-offs of different treatment and surveillance approaches 
• Testing novel therapies including radioligands and immune effector cell engagers across multiple tumor types 

The Urologic Oncology program is a key member of the Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center (DF/HCC) Prostate Cancer SPORE. The program works in collaboration with the BIDMC Urologic Surgery, Radiation Oncology, Pathology and Radiology Departments on clinical and translational programs focused on prostate and kidney cancers.

Urologic Oncology Laboratories

Dr. Balk is responsible for the basic research portion of the Urologic Oncology program. 

• Balk Lab: Led by Dr. Steven Balk, this laboratory has as a major disease interest prostate cancer, with a particular focus on the role of the androgen receptor in prostate cancer development and progression.