Jorge G. Gomez-Gutierrez, Ph.D.'s project entitled “Targeting melanoma hypoxia with lactic acid bacterium L. lactis” has been selected for a National Institutes of Health grant. Hypoxia is a component of the tumor microenvironment, which reduces efficacy of both immuno- and chemo-therapies resulting in poor clinical outcome.Dr. Gomez-Gutierrez will exploit the hypoxic microenvironment as a target for gene therapy, utilizing commensal facultative anaerobic bacteria. The overall goal of this project is to develop an effective and safe delivery system for cancer gene therapy by targeting the hypoxic tumor microenvironment with food-grade lactic acid bacteria (LAB) Lactococcus lactis (L. lactis). Dr. Gomez-Gutierrez is an Assistant Professor in the Division of Surgical Oncology.