Therapeutic strategies against cancer that activate the body's own immune system and thus kill cancer cells have been implemented successfully for patients with bladder cancer. However, predicting which patients will benefit from this type of therapy is only possible to a limited extent. Earlier studies showed that novel tissue markers, including inflammation markers and viral elements that have been integrated into the human genome for thousands of years (so-called endogenous retroviruses), can predict the success of immunotherapies. The aim of the present project is to elucidate the role that these viral elements and inflammation markers play in the development of bladder cancer, and to provide information on how immunotherapy success can be predicted more precisely.

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