When Megan Cintron died in 2020 after a valiant battle with kidney cancer, her husband of 26 years resolved that her legacy would endure, not just for the sake of their three children, but for the thousands of people newly diagnosed with the disease each year.

To date, Rocky Cintron has given to UT Southwestern Medical Center to support the cancer research of Hans Hammers, M.D., Ph.D., who is pursuing new immunotherapies or ways to strengthen the body’s immune system response to fight cancer. The approach has the potential to improve treatment options for more than 600,000 kidney cancer patients living in the United States.

A graduate of Lehigh University, in Pennsylvania, Megan’s principal passions were architecture and interior design. Despite her illness, she organized fundraisers for several charities including the Children’s Cancer Foundation started by Shirley Howard in Baltimore, Maryland, near the Cintron family home.

“Megan was the most elegant woman I’d ever met, and together we were united in the way we raised our children and approached life as a team,” said Mr. Cintron, Founder and CEO of Force 3, a federal IT solutions provider. “We battled this thing together. We went to Dartmouth. We went to Johns Hopkins. We went to UT Southwestern. We went everywhere to find the best doctors.”

The Cintrons met Dr. Hammers while he was a fellow in medical oncology at Johns Hopkins University, before he joined UT Southwestern. Under Dr. Hammers’ care, Megan survived nearly eight years after being diagnosed. Others had given her a prognosis of only a few months.

Now a clinical oncologist and professor in UT Southwestern’s Department of Internal Medicine, Dr. Hammers’ clinical trials have led to Food and Drug Administration approval for combining two immunotherapy drugs, ipilimumab and nivolumab, to treat metastatic kidney cancer – one of the most significant advances in kidney cancer treatment in the last decade.

“Megan was stage 4 when she was diagnosed but she had an incredible attitude and outlook, and she left a legacy of courage for people facing down the disease,” Mr. Cintron said. “We want to get to a point where kidney cancer patients can live longer without experiencing treatment side effects that are worse than the disease. Dr. Hammers’ work offers a blueprint for that.”

• Dr. Hammers is the Eugene P. Frenkel, M.D. Scholar in Clinical Medicine.