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Salem Press

Great Lives from History: Latinos

Diana Montes de Oca Lopez

by Dennis W. Cheek

Cuban-born cancer researcher and educator

Montes de Oca Lopez’s research has made significant contributions to the understanding of tumor immunology. She has worked to advance the education and support of Latinos within the national and global cancer research community.

Areas of achievement: Medicine; education

Early Life

Diana Montes de Oca Lopez (di-AHN-ah MOHN-tes day OH-cah LOH-pehz) was born in Havana, Cuba. After graduating from high school she entered the University of Havana, from which she received her doctorate in natural sciences in 1960. Immigrating to the United States after the Cuban Revolution, she earned an M.S. in microbiology in 1968 and her Ph.D. in microbiology in 1970 from the University of Miami. She remained at the university for a postdoctoral fellowship in immunology and then became an assistant professor of microbiology and immunology at the University of Miami’s Miller School of Medicine, where she remained throughout her career.

Life’s Work

As a teacher, Montes de Oca Lopez was promoted to full professor and became director of the undergraduate program and leader of the tumor immunology program at the Miller School of Medicine. Her rapport with and support of students, including Latinos, was recognized by a faculty appreciation award from the microbiology and immunology undergraduate students at the University of Miami and a teaching award from the university’s Miller School of Medicine. Montes de Oca Lopez also has been a visiting professor at the University of South Florida and the University of the West Indies.

Her research interests have focused on peptides with antitumor properties that show potential for future treatments, how breast tumors affect the development of the thymus and its functioning, and tumor regulation. She has written more than eight-five technical papers and more than twenty-five book chapters and edited five major textbooks in her specialized field.

Montes de Oca Lopez is a two-time president and former member of the senior council of the International Association for Breast Cancer Research. She won the Merit Award of the National Cancer Institute of the National Institutes of Health and the Excellence Award in Health and Science from Hispanic Magazine and Johnson & Johnson. She was appointed to the National Cancer Advisory Board of the National Cancer Institute at the National Institutes of Health in 2004. She has played various roles in the Minorities in Cancer Research Group of the American Association for Cancer Research and has participated in the association’s Women in Cancer Research Group.

Significance

Montes de Oca Lopez’s research on tumor growth, metastasis (tumor spread), and treatment draws on her extensive knowledge of both microbiology and immunology, and her work has advanced the understanding and treatment of cancer. As a professor, she has mentored many undergraduate students and prospective physicians over her long and distinguished career.

Further Reading

1 

Kalte, Pamela M., and Katherine H. Nemeh, eds. American Men and Women of Science: A Biographical Directory of Today’s Leaders in Physical, Biological, and Related Sciences. Detroit: Thomson/Gale, 2003. Includes an entry about Montes de Oca Lopez.

2 

Kanellos, Nicolás, ed. The Hispanic American Almanac: A Reference Work on Hispanics in the United States. Detroit: Gale, 1997. Includes a biographical entry about Montes de Oca Lopez.

3 

Unterburger, Amy L., ed. Who’s Who Among Hispanic Americans. Detroit: Gale Research, 1994. Includes an entry providing bibliographic information about Montes de Oca Lopez.

4 

Wei, Wei-Zen, and Diana M. Lopez, eds. Immunology of Breast Cancer. Ann Arbor, Mich.: OCSL Press, 2005. Montes de la Oca Lopez is one of the editors of this collection of research findings that present new directions in the treatment of breast cancer.

Citation Types

Type
Format
MLA 9th
Cheek, Dennis W. "Diana Montes De Oca Lopez." Great Lives from History: Latinos, edited by Carmen Tafolla & Martha P. Cotera, Salem Press, 2012. Salem Online, online.salempress.com/articleDetails.do?articleName=GLL_10013240040651001.
APA 7th
Cheek, D. W. (2012). Diana Montes de Oca Lopez. In C. Tafolla & M. P. Cotera (Eds.), Great Lives from History: Latinos. Salem Press. online.salempress.com.
CMOS 17th
Cheek, Dennis W. "Diana Montes De Oca Lopez." Edited by Carmen Tafolla & Martha P. Cotera. Great Lives from History: Latinos. Hackensack: Salem Press, 2012. Accessed October 22, 2025. online.salempress.com.