Assistant Professor – Immunology. Cancer Biology Division – UPR Comprehensive Cancer Center, Department of Microbiology and Medical Zoology – UPR Medical Sciences Campus
Email: stephanie.dorta@upr.edu
Phone: 787-758-2525 ext. 1316
Dr. Dorta is a basic and translational immunology researcher, who have focused her career on characterizing immune mechanisms modulating the pathogenesis of different diseases such as HIV, autoimmune diseases, and cancer, as well as treatment response by immunotherapies and chemoradiation. She obtained her B.S. in Biology at the University of Puerto Rico Rio Piedras Campus. After getting accepted to do post-baccalaureate training at the National Institutes of Health, her research projects mostly focused on dissecting immune mechanisms involved in the development of autoimmune diseases such as ulcerative colitis and type 1 diabetes. She then obtained a Ph.D. from the University of Texas Health Sciences Center MD Anderson Cancer Center where she identified cellular immune mediators involved in the development of systemic lupus erythematosus. As part of her postdoctoral training at MD Anderson Cancer Center, she identified a combination of immunotherapies to treat HPV-related cancers in preclinical studies. In addition, she developed a complex flow cytometry panel to study the immune-related changes occurring in the cervix after chemoradiation in cervical cancer patients. Now as an assistant professor at the UPR Comprehensive Cancer Center, she is developing a research program to dissect immunological mechanisms involved in treatment resistance on diverse cancers, especially in HPV-related cancers and to identify immune biomarkers that could be targeted to improve current therapies.
(Oct 16, 2020)