Rebecca Florez

Rebecca Florez is a pharmacist who cares for patients undergoing lung or heart transplants. She helps patients recover after surgery by helping design patient-specific medication regimens. She also spends quality time teaching them how to take medications appropriately and incorporate complicated medication regimens into their daily lives.

Florez finds the challenging nature of her work fulfilling and loves being part of the transplant team. She was among the first staff members hired for UCSF's heart and lung transplant pharmacy and helped to build the program.

Florez's research focuses on pharmacogenetics – how genetic factors affect an individual's response to medications – and in particular how this information may allow providers to better tailor drug therapy for transplant patients and improve outcomes. She is interested in precision medicine, an approach that customizes decisions, treatments and medications for each patient.

Florez earned her doctor of pharmacy degree from the Ernest Mario School of Pharmacy at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey. She joined UCSF in 2005.

Florez is a member of the International Society for Heart and Lung Transplantation.