Dr. Toloza, born in the Philippines and raised in southern California, received his undergraduate degree in 1984 at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). He received his medical degree and a Ph.D. in Physiology from UCLA in 1991.  He completed his internship and residency in General Surgery at the University of California, Irvine Medical Center, during which 
he also completed a Surgical Oncology Research Fellowship at UCLA, where he performed gene therapy 
research for melanoma and sarcoma. He completed his Cardiothoracic Surgery residency in 2000 at the 
Texas Heart Institute in Houston, TX, where he also completed a concurrent Thoracic Surgical 
Oncology Fellowship at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. A Diplomate of the 
American Board of Surgery and the American Board of Thoracic Surgery, Dr. Toloza began his practice 
in 2000 as a Cardiothoracic Surgeon at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, NC.

In 2010, Dr. Toloza came to the Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, FL, where he practices as a 
Thoracic Surgical Oncologist and is Senior Member and Vice Chair of the multidisciplinary 
Department of Thoracic Oncology. He is Medical Director of the Thoracic Oncology Clinic and has 
concurrent appointments as Professor of Surgery and Professor of Oncologic Sciences in the 
University of South Florida Health Morsani College of Medicine in Tampa. Dr. Toloza is involved in 
several lung cancer clinical trials and has authored or co-authored numerous medical journal 
articles, book chapters, and books. He is involved in the evaluation and combined-modality 
treatment of all stages of lung cancer as well as in assessing and treating mediastinal and chest 
wall masses and pulmonary metastases from various extra-thoracic malignancies.  He is one of only a 
few thoracic surgeons worldwide certified to perform robotic-assisted thoracic surgery for primary 
lung cancer, pulmonary metastases, and mediastinal masses.