Melissa Wolf
Belmont University
Kim Rathmell lab
The goal of my project is to better understand the relationship between infiltrating immune cells and renal cell carcinoma (RCC) tumor cells. Considering the inherent challenges of studying the tumor microenvironment (TME) in mouse model organisms or 2D cell culture, I aim to utilize human tissue specimens acquired by fine needle aspiration (FNA) for evaluation of 3D organization, an approach that could recapitulate physiological cancer processes.