The current study was designed to a) investigate the incidence of PHD2/3, HIF-α in selected human solid cancers b) test the hypothesis that degradation of HIF-α by MSC is PHD2 and proteasome dependent, VHL and PHD3 independent and c) determine if these effects will translate into therapeutic benefit without toxicity in ccRCC tumor xenografts. The gene discussed is EGLN1; the disease is nonpapillary renal cell carcinoma.