Dr James Jones, Fellow, is a medical oncologist who teaches pathology to Christ’s undergraduates. He is based on the Cambridge Biomedical Campus and is a member of the Cancer Research UK Cambridge Centre, responsible for researching and giving drug treatments to people with advanced kidney cancer.
Kidney Cancer Awareness week takes place from Monday 2 February to Friday 6 February 2026. It is the 6th most common cancer in the UK. It is more common in men than women, and in people over 60 years old. Kidney cancers are often found by chance when people go for scans for other problems like gall stones. Some of the risk factors include being overweight or having high blood pressure, as well as other factors that are not yet fully understood.
Dr Jones, who has also studied pancreatic cancer and melanoma, said:
“I've always been interested in how the immune system interacts with cancer. And kidney cancer is one where there seems to be a strong immune effect. This is known as ‘immune hot.’”
The first-choice treatment for kidney cancer is immunotherapy, given by infusion, which activates the immune system to attack the cancer.
Dr Jones said:
“Immunotherapy takes the brakes off the immune system and allows the immune system to control the cancer, which is pretty effective for a good proportion of people.”
The aim of Dr Jones’ research is to identify and treat those individuals who are at high risk of having an incurable relapse even after surgery. Since the therapies can cause serious immune-related side effects, he says, ‘what we want to try and do is minimise that risk by trying to pick the high-risk people who get the most benefit.’
One approach currently explored is whether giving immunotherapy before surgery is more effective, as is seen in some other cancers. This is investigated in the WIRE Trial (WIndow-of-opportunity clinical trial platform for evaluation of novel treatment strategies in REnal cell cancer), which uses a range of new therapies. Led by Professor Grant Stewart, the trial recruits patients from around the UK and Dr Jones leads the scientific design.
Dr Jones said:
“A key aim of WIRE is to gain a deep understanding of how the drugs being tested are affecting the tumour and immune system, that we can take forward into future trials. Delivering the trial depends on co-operation between lots of different medical and scientific teams in Cambridge. We are excited to see new results from the trial, expected later this year.”
More about The Urological Malignances Programme
More about WIRE
Watch Dr Jones contributing to a short film explaining metastasis.
Banner credit: © Hanna Warne, Cancer Research UK Cambridge Centre