2 Pitt researchers received Cytokine Society awards

Two researchers in the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine have received awards from The Cytokine Society. They will both be honored and speak at the Cytokines 2026 meeting Oct. 18-21 in Glasgow, Scotland.

Victor S. Cortez, who joined the Department of Immunology as an assistant professor last year, received the 2026 Cytokine Society-Regeneron New Investigator Award for Excellence in Cytokine and Interferon Research. Cortez’s lab focuses on understanding how immune cells called innate lymphoid cells induce tissue changes and coordinate long-lasting immunity in the gut and other tissues. He will give a talk on his work at Cytokines 2026.

Catherine Phelps, a graduate student in Pitt’s Program in Microbiology and Immunology and a PhD student in the lab of Associate Professor Marlies Meisel, received the 2026 Sidney and Joan Pestka Graduate Award. She studies how lifestyle factors, including exercise, diet, supplements and probiotics, impact immune responses during cancer and other diseases via the microbiome. Her talk at Cytokines 2026 is titled, “Exercise-induced microbial metabolite enhances CD8 T cell antitumor immunity promoting immunotherapy efficacy.”