Catherine Flores, PhD

Catherine Flores

Special Interests

  • Intracranial Tumors
  • Immunotherapy

Catherine T. Flores, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor in the Department of Neurosurgery and Principal Investigator of the Hematopoietic Stem Cell Engineering Laboratory within the Preston A. Wells, Jr. Center for Brain Tumor Therapy and UF Brain Tumor Immunotherapy Program.

Dr. Flores received her master’s degree in the immunology of infectious diseases from the University of London, UK before receiving her Ph.D. in Stem Cell Biology in the Department of Hematology/Immunology from Imperial College London, UK. She conducted her post-doctoral training at the Duke University Preston Robert Tisch Brain Tumor Center where her primary focus was on developing immunotherapy against brain tumors in Duke University’s Brain Tumor Immunotherapy Program. During this period, Dr. Flores also conducted parallel studies in the use of stem cells for neuroprotection against radiation at the Duke University Department of Pediatrics.

Dr. Flores joined the University of Florida faculty to become part of the Preston A. Wells Jr. Center for Brain Tumor Therapy in order to focus on developing novel approaches to target brain tumors. She has developed a pre-clinical platform that utilizes tumor-specific autologous immune cells to efficiently target intracranial tumors. Her research interests are primarily in determining biological interactions between various cellular compartments involved in adoptive immunotherapy. Her studies also focus on leveraging systemic toxicity of frequently practiced clinical treatments in order to further enhance anti-tumor efficacy of immunotherapy.

Publications

See publications by Dr. Flores