Redirecting Cytomegalovirus Immunity against Pancreas Cancer for Immunotherapy
Lecture Date: Friday, Aug. 22, 2025
Lecture Time: 1:00 p.m. - 2:00 p.m.
Reception to follow Lecture: 2:00 p.m. - 2:30 p.m.
Lecture Location: Donald P. Shiley Bioscience Center Gold Auditorium
Rising Star Biography:
Tatiana Hurtado de Mendoza, Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Surgery at the UC San Diego Moores Cancer Center. She is a cancer biologist with expertise in targeted cancer immunotherapy. Her research focuses on cancer drug delivery approaches that reduce toxicity to healthy tissue and increase drug penetration into the tumor, two factors that increase therapeutic efficacy. Her research applies immunotherapy approaches in pancreatic or breast cancer, aiming to introduce neoantigens in these solid tumors in order to render them suitable targets for immunotherapies. Her vision for translation of these approaches is to redirect the patient’s pre-existing immunity against a pathogen toward the tumor.
Rising Stars is a program that brings early career scholars from research institutes across the country to SDSU. The Rising Star tours SDSU facilities and laboratories, interacts with SDSU faculty and graduate students, and presents their funded research as part of a seminar series, followed by a social reception. The goal of the program is to stimulate productive relationships between faculty members that are the foundation to future grant collaboration, and to develop graduate student programming that provides an avenue for questions regarding future career opportunities through near peer mentorship.
