Special Interests
- Nanotechnology
- Immunotherapy
- Brain tumors
- Blood-brain barrier
Biography
Hector R. Mendez-Gomez is a Research Associate Scientist in the RNA Engineering Laboratory at the University of Florida Brain Tumor Immunotherapy Program (UFBTIP) and the Preston A. Wells, Jr. Center for Brain Tumor Therapy.
Dr. Mendez-Gomez received his master’s degree in Biochemistry from the University of Salamanca (Spain) in 2004 and his Ph.D. from the Autonomous University of Madrid (Spain) in 2009 under the mentorship of Dr. Carlos Vicario-Abejon. During his doctoral training, he investigated the potential of reprogramming neural stem cells (NSCs) to develop cellular therapies for neurological disorders, including Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s disease.
From 2009 to 2011, he worked as a postdoctoral associate at the Cajal Institute (Madrid, Spain). He then joined Dr. Nicholas Muzyczka’s laboratory at the University of Florida’s Cancer and Genetics Research Complex. There, he developed gene therapy strategies for brain disorders and addressed the persistent challenge of effectively overcoming the blood-brain barrier to deliver drugs into the central nervous system.
In 2015, Dr. Mendez-Gomez joined the University of Florida faculty in the Department of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology. In 2017, he became a member of Dr. Elias Sayour’s RNA Engineering Laboratory in the Department of Neurosurgery. His current research focuses on developing novel targeted therapeutics against malignant brain tumors. Specifically, Dr. Mendez-Gomez engineers innovative messenger RNA-directed nanomaterials to treat the most common pediatric and adult brain cancers.
Publications