Michelle C. Mendoza, PhD

Dr. Mendoza received her B.S. (Highest Honors) in Animal Bioscience from Pennsylvania State University in University Park, Pennsylvania in 2000. She conducted her graduate work at the University of California, San Diego with Dr. Richard A. Firtel, studying signal transduction and cell migration using the model organism Dictyostelium discoidem. She received her PhD in Biomedical Science from UCSD in 2005. She then carried out postdoctoral training with cancer cell signaling expert Dr. John Blenis (funding from Susan G. Komen) and computer vision pioneer Dr. Gaudenz Danuser (K01 funding from the NCI) in the Department of Cell Biology at Harvard Medical School. She studied the molecular signals that control the actin cytoskeleton during cell movement. In 2013, Dr. Mendoza started her independent research program at the University of California, San Francisco, in the Department of Cell and Tissue Biology. In 2015, Dr. Mendoza moved her lab to join the faculty of the Department of Oncological Sciences, within the University of Utah, School of Medicine and the Huntsman Cancer Institute. Here, she expanded her research program to address the progression and invasion of early lung tumors. She is currently Assistant Professor in Oncological Sciences. She is Adjunct faculty in the Department of Bioengineering and a member of the Cancer Center’s Cell Response and Regulation (CRR) Program and the Lung Cancer Center.

Research: The Mendoza lab mission is to help patients with lung cancer and other solid tumors through the discovery of fundamental mechanisms of cancer progression. The lab studies the biochemical and mechanical signaling of cell migration and lung cancer progression. The lab utilizes biochemistry, quantitative imaging, mouse models, and computational modeling to address: 1) cytoskeletal dynamics during motility: How do signaling pathways, such as the oncogenic RAS/ERK pathway, control the coordinated cytoskeletal and adhesion dynamics that make cells move? 2) early tumor cancer progression: How do changes in extracellular matrix and physical properties of the lung contribute to the progression of early tumors to cancer? 3) lung cancer cell invasion: What signals and processes do lung cancer cells employ to spread through their altered tumor microenvironment and disseminate?

Current Administrative Positions: Chair, Rising Stars Committee for the Department of Oncological Sciences. PED Oversight Committee and PED Liason for CRR. Member, Pathmaker Program Oversight Committee, HCI and Oncological Sciences Seminar Series Committees, and University of Utah Cell Imaging Core Oversight Committee.

Teaching: Dr. Mendoza teaches and examines the first year Molecular Biology graduate students. She also teaches Cancer Invasion and Metastasis in the Department of Oncological Sciences Cancer Biology course and Ethical Quantitative Imaging Approaches in the Medical School’s Light Microscopy and Digital Imaging Course. She is mentoring 1 postdoctoral fellow, 3 PhD students, and an undergraduate student.

Service: Dr. Mendoza is an ad hoc reviewer for multiple peer-reviewed scientific journals, including Science Signaling, Cell Reports, Journal of Cell Biology, and Oncogene. She is an ad hoc reviewer on serves on R21 Special Emphasis Panels and the Cell Signaling and Regulatory Systems study sections at NIH.

Research Statement

Cancer spread, or metastasis, involves improper cell movement. My research focuses on determining - at the mechanistic level - how a cell normally regulates the processes of cell movement and how this goes awry during cancer dissemination.