Dr. Laura Bonifaz is a leading figure in dendritic cell biology in Mexico. She earned her B.Sc. in Pharmaceutical Biological Chemistry and her M.Sc. and Ph.D. in Biomedical Sciences from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) and trained as a postdoctoral fellow with Dr. Ralph Steinman at The Rockefeller University. There she helped establish the DEC-205 platform for targeting antigens to dendritic cells in vivo, a landmark strategy for the specific modulation of immune responses that remains foundational to the field.

Building on that legacy, she leads an independent research program dissecting how dendritic cells orchestrate adaptive immunity and shape CD8+ T-cell responses, with a strong translational focus on cancer immunotherapy. She has served since 2022 as Head of Health Research Coordination at the Mexican Institute of Social Security (IMSS) where she has driven translational science across the institute by promoting precision medicine and evidence-based healthcare decisions to improve patient care nationwide.