Assistant Professor of Radiology and Cancer Biology, Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania

Assistant Professor of Radiology, Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania

Assistant Professor of Radiology, Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania

My recent work in the PIGI lab has focused on overcoming difficulties surrounding the generation of patient-derived models of primary liver cancer. This emphasis on improving cancer models stems from my conviction that therapeutic translation in cancer research could be greatly accelerated by increasing the availability of models that represent the diversity and complexity of human disease.

Kelley Weinfurtner is a Transplant Hepatologist and Instructor of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. She joined the PIGI lab in 2019 under a T32 training grant as part of her Gastroenterology fellowship. Her research is centered around developing patient-derived models of primary liver cancer for use in translational therapeutics, specifically identifying predictors of response and mechanisms of resistance to immunotherapy in hepatocellular carcinoma.

Dr. Molly Sheehan is biophysicist specializing in protein engineering, purification and characterization who has worked on diverse scientific projects pushing the boundaries of what can be functionally expressed in recombinant systems. She has worked on mitochondrial stress models, blood substitutes, and new probes for tracking cancer therapies amongst other research targets. Molly has expertise in a wide range of analytical techniques, including molecular assays, optical and magnetic resonant techniques. She has pioneered new methods and use cases for spectroscopic imaging and is highly adaptable to learning new technologies. Additionally, Molly has experience improving protein yield and stability across a variety of systems, applying cellular understanding to protein engineering to improve the robustness of recombinant systems.

David Tischfield is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Radiology, Division of Nuclear Medicine Imaging and Therapy, at the University of Pennsylvania. Having completed his MD/PhD, diagnostic radiology residency, and nuclear radiology fellowship at the same institution, David has been a valuable member of the PIGI lab since 2017. His contributions include the development of patient-derived xenograft (PDX) models of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), the characterization of the tumor immune microenvironment following locoregional therapy, and the use of metabolic imaging to explore metabolic vulnerabilities in HCC for improved diagnostic imaging paradigms.

Veterinarian in biomedical research. The lab I operate in is interested in developing novel strategies in interventional radiology aimed at improving outcomes in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma.

My experience and skills range from in vitro to in vivo procedures, as well as small animal clinical veterinary medicine and surgery. I'm excited to bring my clinical training and expertise back into a translational research setting. Remember to thank your research animals!

Hailing from NJ, Ali completed a bionengineering degree from Penn before heading down south to complete his MD/PhD at the University of Virginia where he focused on applications for ultrasound drug delivery. He currently heads the PIGI labs initiative to bring augmented reality to interventional radiology (AR4IR).

Originally from Beirut, Lebanon, Ryan earned his bachelor’s degree in biology followed by his M.D. from the American University of Beirut in 2022. He went on to complete an internship in general surgery at the University of Pennsylvania before joining PIGI as a postdoctoral researcher in July 2023.

Ryan is an avid traveler, he has visited 20 countries and lived in 4 of them. If you need movie suggestions, he’s the man to talk to.

Alexey joined PIGI in the summer of 2019, during his research gap year while attending medical school in Tel Aviv. His background in Applied Immunology from University of Toronto enabled him to utilize his expertise to analyze hepatocellular carcinoma tumor microenvironment pre and post arterial embolic therapy. Now, as an IR/DR resident, he continues to be passionate about translational basic science.

Shurik is an aspiring actor who just took a very very short detour to get a BS in Physics from the University of Rochester, a 2 year introduction to translational imaging at Massachusetts General Hospital, and is now a graduate student in the PIGI lab (don't worry Hollywood, you'll get him eventually).

Bukola is awesome

I joined the PIGI lab in December 2018. In addition to being the lab manager, I am working with Daniel Ackerman to develop patient-derived models of hepatocellular carcinoma from biopsy samples to allow for functional precision medicine approaches.

After graduating from Swarthmore College and working at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, Dan joined the lab in 2022 as a PhD student. He is focused on applying analytical chemistry methods to patient-derived HCC models, and developing robust pharmacokinetics, metabolomics, and mass spectrometry imaging methods is his passion (not graphic design). Outside of lab, Dan loves playing guitar, slow pitch softball, and hanging out with his cat, Mavi.

I have been working in PIGI Lab since February 2021 as Research Specialist. Before joining PIGI Lab, I have completed my Bachelor and Master of Pharmacy from Bangladesh then I completed MS in Pharmaceutical Science from Rowan University/CMSRU wherein my thesis was in preclinical drug development for treating neuropsychiatric disorder. I do have tremendous interest on drug discovery, more specifically pre-clinical drug discovery for treating cancer. There are chemotherapeutical drugs available and most of those are not capable of targeting only cancer cells. Scientists have been working on developing target based loco- regional therapy to treat specifically target tumor. One of the major ideas of PIGI Lab is to improve and develop new therapeutic methods to treat target tumor by minimally affecting non target cells which enticed me to learn and contribute to this pioneer research. My project in PIGI lab is working on rodent model to treat HCC by minimally invasive loco-regional therapy, known as trans-arterial embolization (TAE) with different particles, nano-particles, hydrogel often with the combination of traditional and novel anti-cancer drug molecules. In this project we regularly use T-2 weighted MRI, sometimes T-1 weighted MRI, ultrasound to stage tumor and image guided technology to precisely embolize the target tumor. We also analyze harvested tissue through IHC and other molecular techniques. Other than my lab- life, I enjoy workout, playing Cricket, and spend time in nature.

Jessica is awesome

Erena completed her bachelor's in Biotechnology in Bangladesh. She is currently pursuing her master’s in biotechnology at UPenn and has been a part of PIGI lab since January 2023. She is working with David Tischfield on his project, where she is investigating the role of leucine metabolism in cancer development and characterizing the tumor immune microenvironment in humanized PDX models of HCC. Her research interests are in cellular immunotherapy, particularly in CART cell therapy. Outside of academic life, Erena likes hiking, exploring new places, and going on adventures. Traveling the world one day is on her bucket list.

Justin joined the PIGI Lab as a Research Specialist in 2023 while completing his Master of Bioethics at the Perelman School of Medicine. His research applies synthetic biology and metabolic imaging to improve tracking of cellular therapies, engineer an electroporation system for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) intra-tumoral suicide gene delivery, and understand branched-chain amino acid metabolism to improve precision medicine paradigms for HCC. He also has contributed to projects focused on imaging kidney ischemic reperfusion injury, distinguishing genetic mutant subgroups of HCC using patient-derived xenograft (PDX) models, and implementing the first hyperpolarized carbon imaging clinical trial for HCC. Justin is currently a medical student at the University of Rochester.

Born and raised in the Philippines before ping-ponging to suburban Florida then back to the Philippines, Isabela returned to the states to study Biology, Chemistry and American Sign Language/Deaf Studies at UPenn while working part time at the PIGI Lab. After graduating, Isabela continued in the lab as a Research Specialist on the in vivo side before becoming a Clinical Research Coordinator. Between running to clinical sites, you’ll find her working on databases, histology and pathology projects, and caring for the lab’s single plant. Outside of lab, Isabela enjoys volunteering for an AIDS/HIV and chronic illness non-profit, illustrating and writing stories, and stockpiling ingredients for recipes she may or may not actually try.

Anh Dang is currently a Perelman medical student working with the PIGI lab. Outside of school and research, her interests include podcast producing and marketing with the BackTable Podcast Network, playing volleyball, and exploring the city of Philadelphia.

I’m fascinated in digital health, specifically in using wearables and mixed reality technology for use in all domains of interventional radiology. My work in the PIGI lab has focused on finding use cases for the HoloLens for training, preprocedural planning, and intraoperative tools that can improve surgical workflow and outcomes.

Stephanie graduated from Vanderbilt University and is now a first-year medical student at Penn. When she's not in JMEC, you can find her at the pool as a part-time swim instructor, exploring Philly's fantastic food scene (Chinatown bakeries >>>), or at a concert!

Following a surgical internship with UPenn Surgery, Lauren is now completing her IR integrated residency with UPenn IR. Lauren is interested in research focused on liver disease, women’s health, and improving clinical operations in DR and IR care delivery.

I joined the PIGI Lab in 2016 as a HHMI-SIRF medical research fellow. Now as an interventional radiology resident at the University of Pennsylvania, my interest is in translational oncologic research and the effort to personalize interventional oncology care for patients.

I’ve been with Penn radiology since 2006 and started working in research in 2019 as a research coordinator. I now manage about 10 Interventional radiology studies.

I have a broad interest in conditioning the tumor microenvironment to generate targetable dependencies that may be exploited when developing cancer therapeutics. Trans-arterial chemoembolization (TACE) is a locoregional therapy that combines embolization of the hepatic artery with intra-arterial chemotherapy and is the most common procedure to treat liver cancer patients that are not eligible for a transplant

Dr. Itkin is a Professor of Radiology and Pediatrics at the University of Pennsylvania and Nemours Children’s Hospital where he is a co-director of the Center for Lymphatic Imaging and Interventions. Dr. Itkin is nationally and internationally recognized for his clinical and research expertise in an interventional treatment of the lymphatic disorders.