Associate Professor of Child Health, School of Medicine

NextGen Focus Area: Cancer and Immunology

The Jorge Gomez-Gutierrez Laboratory is primarily interested in microbial-based cancer therapy. Dr. Gomez-Gutierrez focuses on investigating how virus- and bacteria-based therapies can be used to stop tumorigenesis and induce oncolysis and/or immune responses in cancers when conventional therapy is inadequate. He is studying two microorganisms: a conditionally replicating adenovirus also known as oncolytic adenovirus and the lactic acid bacteria Lactococcus lactis generally regarded as a safe and  used in the dairy industry to make cheese and yogurt.  

Precision Health Impact:

• Developing cancer-selective tumoricidal agents to deliver immunotherapeutic molecules. 
• Developing genetically engineered probiotic bacterium as immunomodulatory therapies. 
• Overcoming cancer resistance to immunotherapy and targeted therapies. 

Publications:

• Garza-Morales R, Perez-Trujillo JJ, Martinez-Jaramillo E, Saucedo-Cardenas O, Loera-Arias MJ, Garcia-Garcia A, et al. A DNA Vaccine Encoding SA-4-1BBL Fused to HPV-16 E7 Antigen Has Prophylactic and Therapeutic Efficacy in a Cervical Cancer Mouse Model. Cancers (Basel). 2019 Jan 15;11(1):96.
• Barsoumian HB, Batra L, Shrestha P, Bowen WS, Zhao H, Egilmez NK, et al. A Novel Form of 4-1BBL Prevents Cancer Development via Nonspecific Activation of CD4+ T and Natural Killer Cells. Cancer Res. 2019 Feb 15;79(4):783–94.
• Martinez-Perez AG, Perez-Trujillo JJ, Garza-Morales R, Ramirez-Avila NE, Loera-Arias MJ, Gomez-Gutierrez JG, et al. An Oncolytic Adenovirus Encoding SA-4-1BBL Adjuvant Fused to HPV-16 E7 Antigen Produces a Specific Antitumor Effect in a Cancer Mouse Model. Vaccines (Basel). 2021 Feb 12;9(2):149.
• Garza-Morales R, Rendon BE, Malik MT, Garza-Cabrales JE, Aucouturier A, Bermúdez-Humarán LG, et al. Targeting Melanoma Hypoxia with the Food-Grade Lactic Acid Bacterium Lactococcus Lactis. Cancers (Basel). 2020 Feb 13;12(2):438.
• Lypova N, Lanceta L, Gibson A, Vega S, Garza-Morales R, McMasters KM, et al. Targeting Palbociclib-Resistant Estrogen Receptor-Positive Breast Cancer Cells via Oncolytic Virotherapy. Cancers (Basel). 2019 May 16;11(5):684.
• Lanceta L, O’Neill C, Lypova N, Li X, Rouchka E, Waigel S, et al. Transcriptomic Profiling Identifies Differentially Expressed Genes in Palbociclib-Resistant ER+ MCF7 Breast Cancer Cells. Genes (Basel). 2020 Apr 24;11(4):467. 

     Google Scholar

     NCBI

     PubMed

    ResearchGate

Email: jgdk2@health.missouri.edu
Department website: https://medicine.missouri.edu/faculty/jorge-gomez-gutierrez-phd