We are a research lab focused on revolutionizing treatment using multi-dimensional omics/imaging/clinical data. We discover new targets and translate our findings into new trials for patients. Trained in diverse backgrounds from data sciences to immunology to medicine, we are all motivated to cure cancer. If you’re interested in collaborations, please reach out!
Current Members
Jason J Luke, MD FACP is an Associate Professor of Medicine in the Division of Hematology/Oncology and Director of the Cancer Immunotherapeutics Center within the UPMC Hillman Cancer Immunology and Immunotherapy Program.
Riyue Bao, PhD (a.k.a. Sunny) is an Associate Professor of Medicine in the Division of Hematology/Oncology and Co-Director of Bioinformatics at the UPMC Hillman Cancer Center.
Alex Tompkins, MD Candidate (Class of 2024) is a second-year medical student at UPitt School of Medicine.
Ryan Augustin, MD received his medical degree from Case Western Reserve University and is currently a third-year internal medicine resident at UPMC.
Zane Gray, MD Candidate (Class of 2023) is a second-year medical student at UPitt School of Medicine.
Aofei Li, MD received his medical degree from Tsinghua University. He is currently a third year pathology resident at UPMC.
Nikita Patel is a second year medical student from Princeton, NJ. During her undergraduate career at Pitt as a bioengineering major, Nikita's research focused on improving drug delivery methods for applications in skin cancer immunotherapy.
Wesley Cai, PhD is a second year medical student at UPSOM who graduated with a PhD in Experimental Pathology from Yale University in 2020. He is currently exploring the molecular portrait of NK cell profiles across multiple cancers and their response to immune checkpoint blockade.
Arjun Mittal is a first year medical student at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. During his gap year, Arjun conducted bioinformatics research at the NIH. He is currently interested in exploring the intersection between cancer immunotherapy and bioinformatics.
Becky Dadey, PhD is a postdoctoral investigator in the TIIL laboratory. Becky earned her PhD studying T cell function in the tumor and autoimmune environment at the University of Pittsburgh. Her interests include building innovative computational solutions to improve response to immunotherapy.
Sarah Brodeur, BS is a Project and Laboratory Manager for the TIIL Group. She received her BS in Microbiology and Immunology from the University of Rochester.
Rose Doerfler, PhD is a research scientist in the TIIL laboratory. Rose completed her PhD in chemical engineering at Carnegie Mellon University, studying drug delivery for infants.
Krishna Beer Singh, PhD is a Senior Research Scientist in the TIIL laboratory. He received his Ph.D. from Banaras Hindu University, India. Krishna did his Postdoctoral fellowship and then worked as a research scientist at Department of Pharmacology and Chemical Biology, School of Medicine, University of Pittsburgh with research focused on cancer metabolism and cancer chemotherapy. Krishna’s current research interest focuses on developing new immunotherapeutic strategies exploiting different aspects of T cell-inflamed and non-T cell-inflamed tumor microenvironment.
Alumni
Adam Olson, MD is a clinician-scientist in the Department of Radiation Oncology at UPMC Hillman Cancer Center with an interest in the rational combination of radiation therapy and immunotherapy for patients with advanced solid tumors.
Joe Mocharnuk is a medical student at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine with research interests in bioinformatics and cancer immunotherapy and career interests in academic medicine and translational science.
Josh Holloway, MS, MA was a Research Technician II. Josh originally earned his BS in biology from from Ohio Northern University. He also holds a MS in biology from the University of Nebraska at Kearney and a MA in history from Bowling Green State University. Josh is currently PhD student in ISB program at UPitt.
Tyler Buchanan, MD received his medical degree from West Virginia University School of Medicine and is currently a third year internal medicine resident at UPMC. Tyler performed chart review of patients during his 1-month research block May-June 2021.
Shaila Fye was an undergraduate student from Barnard College. Shaila performed single-cell RNAseq analysis during her bioinformatics summer internship 2020. She recently graduated from Barnard College of Columbia University with a major in Computational Biology and a minor in Science and Public Policy. Shaila is currently Software Engineer at Ribbon Health, New York.
Juncheng Wu (Lancaster) was an undergraduate student, Allegheny College. Lancaster performed digital pathology image analysis using machine-learning and deep-learning approaches during his bioinformatics internship 2020-2021. His work led to a first-author paper published on Nature Biotechnology in 2021, “Virtual meetings promise to eliminate geographical and administrative barriers and increase accessibility, diversity and inclusivity”. Lancaster is currently pursuing M.S in Applied Information Science (Technion) & M.S in Information Systems (Cornell) in Cornell Tech.
Daniel (Tuck) Stapor, MD received his medical degree from the Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University. With the TIIL Group tuck investigated the use of radiomic features to predict organ specific treatment response. He is now a fellow at Fox Chase Cancer Center
Max Jameson Lee, MD, PhD is now the AACR drug development fellow at AstraZeneca
Afsaneh Amouzegar, MD received her medical degree from Tehran University of Medical Sciences, performed her residency at UPMC, and is now a fellow at MD Anderson Cancer Center
Lilit Karapetyan, MD MS completed her fellowship in Oncology at UPMC Hillman Cancer Center before accepting an attending position at Moffitt Cancer Center.
Previous Mentees
Dan Olson, MD. Hematology/Oncology Fellow, University of Chicago. (Clinical) - Currently Instructor in Medicine at The University of Chicago.
Michael Leukam, MD. Hematology/Oncology Fellow, University of Chicago. (Bioinformatics) - Currently Instructor in Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Beth Israel Deaconess.
Emily Higgs, MD/PhD student, Committee in Immunology, University of Chicago. (Bioinformatics) - Currently a graduate student at the University of Chicago.
Steven Maron, MD, MSc. Clinical Fellow, University of Chicago. (Bioinformatics) - Currently Assistant Professor at Weill Cornell and Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.
Brian Labadie, MD. Clinical Associate of Medicine, University of Chicago. (Clinical/Bioinformatics) - Currently incoming Medical Oncology Fellow at Columbia University Irving Medical Center.