MD Anderson Cancer Center
Houston, United States
Dr. Gomez-Manzano is Professor of Neuro-Oncology - Research at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. She holds a dual appointment as a faculty member in Cancer Biology at MD Anderson Cancer Center UTHealth Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences. After receiving her medical degree from the University of Barcelona, Spain, she completed a residency in Neurology at the Central University of Barcelona. In 1994, she arrived in Houston to begin a fellowship in Experimental Neuro‑Oncology, followed by a faculty position at MD Anderson Cancer Center.
Dr. Gomez-Manzano’s research — which has an important translational component — is focused on deciphering how gliomas resist therapies and on developing new therapies for patients with malignant gliomas and brain metastasis. With Juan Fueyo, M.D., she has designed and developed oncolytic adenoviruses that are being tested in clinical trials with encouraging results. She has served as the principal investigator of many studies — funded by the Department of Defense, the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas, the NIH, and others — investigating gliomas and therapies to fight them.
Dr. Gomez-Manzano has received the Waun Ki Hong Award for Excellence in Team Science for her team’s groundbreaking work on the oncolytic adenovirus Delta-24, which is showing tremendous promise for fighting glioblastoma. She was nominated four times for The University of Texas Regents’ Outstanding Teaching Award, and was 2014 finalist for the Robert M. Chamberlain Distinguished Mentor Award. In 2018, she was included in the Spanish Selection of Science by the Spanish National Research Council. Her work has been published in more than 270 peer-reviewed articles, invited articles, abstracts, and book chapters. In 2021, her research in collaboration with Dr. Fueyo was highlighted as “Researchers that have participated in Accelerating our Understanding of Cancer into the Future” by the NCI Act50th Anniversary Commemoration.