The p53 family of tumor suppressor genes has been the organizing focus of Elsa R. Flores' scientific career. For more than two decades, Dr. Flores has investigated how these genes, and in particular p63 and p73, influence the way cancers develop, spread, and resist treatment. Her findings have deepened the field's grasp of the roles these genes play in stem cell maintenance, metabolism, and tumor progression, and they have been reported in some of the most prominent journals in cancer research.

Dr. Flores, who holds a Ph.D., currently serves as a Senior Member in the Department of Molecular Oncology at Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, Florida. Her appointments there also reach into the Departments of Cutaneous Oncology and Thoracic Oncology, and she additionally holds a professorship in the Department of Oncologic Sciences and the Department of Biomedical Engineering at the University of South Florida (USF) Health Morsani College of Medicine.

Her path to this work began in engineering. She completed a Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1994 before earning a Ph.D. in Cancer Biology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1999, where her dissertation research took place at the McArdle Laboratory for Cancer Research. A postdoctoral fellowship in Cancer Biology, again at MIT, followed.

With her training complete, Dr. Flores established her first independent laboratory at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, joining the Department of Molecular and Cellular Oncology as an Assistant Professor in 2004. Promotions followed at a steady pace: she was granted tenure as an Associate Professor in 2010 and reached the rank of full Professor with tenure in 2015. Her service to the institution included roles as Co-Director and then Director of the Genes and Development Graduate Ph.D. Program and as Co-Leader of the Metastasis Research Program under MD Anderson's NCI Cancer Center Support Grant.

A move to Moffitt Cancer Center came in 2016. There she was appointed Chair and Senior Member of the Department of Molecular Oncology, a role she retained until 2022, and she concurrently became a Professor with tenure at USF and Leader of the Cancer Biology and Evolution Program under Moffitt's NCI Cancer Center Support Grant. Two years later, in 2022, her portfolio broadened to include the positions of Associate Center Director and Division Chief of Discovery Science, which she held through 2026. These duties placed six academic departments under her oversight, spanning Drug Discovery, Immunology, Metabolism and Physiology, Molecular Oncology, Tumor Microenvironment and Metastasis, and Bioengineering, and together comprising 59 faculty members. She was central to the creation of Moffitt's Department of Bioengineering in 2022 and served as Executive Project Sponsor for the research programming, design, and construction of the Moffitt Discovery and Innovation Center at Speros.

Funding has supported her laboratory consistently over the years. As Principal Investigator or Co-Principal Investigator, she has directed a range of federally funded grants from the National Institutes of Health and the National Cancer Institute, including a long-running R35 Outstanding Investigator Award and a P01 program project grant aimed at uncovering metabolic vulnerabilities in lung cancer. Among her most recent support is a 2026 All Star Translational Award from the V Foundation for Cancer Research, backing research on "undruggable" pathways involved in tumor progression and therapy resistance. Her scientific work has additionally yielded five patents and patent applications connected to p63 biology and cancer therapeutics, as well as a licensing agreement for the development of cancer progression biomarkers.

The honors she has received trace the arc of her career. She began with fellowships from the National Institutes of Health, the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, and the American Cancer Society. She was later named a Rita Allen Foundation Scholar and an American Cancer Society Research Scholar, and she went on to hold the NCI Outstanding Investigator Award from 2016 to 2024. Moffitt has recognized her as a Distinguished Scholar from 2016 to 2026, she was named the Kaul Foundation Endowed Chair in 2022, and she was chosen as a V Foundation All Star for 2026 through 2031. In 2017 she was invited to give the AACR-Boston Ruth Sager Memorial Lecture, an honor extended to leading cancer biology researchers.

Alongside her laboratory, Dr. Flores has contributed to the field through editorial and review service. She held the post of Senior Editor at Cancer Research from 2016 to 2020 and has remained a member of its editorial board since 2021, while also sitting on the editorial boards of Molecular Cancer Research and the Journal of Molecular Cell Biology. She has led numerous NIH review panels and study sections, serving as Chair of both NIH/NCI-CAMP and NIH/NCI-GRIC, and she has organized and chaired several international workshops, including multiple sessions of the p73/p63 International Workshop convened in the United States, Canada, Japan, and Europe.

The training of new scientists has remained integral to her work. Over her years at MD Anderson and Moffitt, she has mentored many graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and junior faculty, several of whom have gone on to lead their own laboratories and chair academic departments. She also co-directs an NIH-funded T32 training program in cancer and data science, a commitment that runs parallel to her research and administrative responsibilities. As her work continues at Moffitt Cancer Center and USF, Dr. Flores remains a driving force in translational cancer research, her career encompassing laboratory discovery, bioengineering, academic leadership, and mentorship across nearly thirty years in cancer biology.