Description of Research Expertise

Dr. Aggarwal is the Leslye Heisler Associate Professor for Lung Cancer Excellence at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine.
Dr. Aggarwal specializes in the management of patients with lung cancer, with a specific and clinical research focus on the development of personalized therapeutic approaches, and the discovery and application of biomarkers to guide treatment. She is a world-renowned expert in the application of plasma-based gene sequencing in the management of patients with metastatic lung cancer, and is actively working on implementation of comprehensive testing, and discovery of approaches focusing on early detection, detection of resistance mutations and disease monitoring.

Dr. Aggarwal serves as the Associate Director of Penn Center for Precision Medicine, and Director of Precision Medicine Innovation at the Penn Center for Cancer Care Innovation (PC3I). In her roles, she is actively involved in developing, implementing, and advancing strategic and operational precision medicine initiatives with a focus on those that involve bringing new technologies or approaches to clinical care and ultimately deliver on the promise of personalized cancer therapy.

She is an active member of the Abramson Cancer Center where she serves as Physician Leader for the clinical research program for Airways Malignancies. Dr. Aggarwal performs patient-centered, scientifically relevant novel immunotherapy clinical trials that will make a tangible impact and advance our understanding of immunotherapy in patients with Lung Cancer.

Selected Publications

Sun L, Marmarelis ME, Aggarwal C.: Management of Patients With EGFR Exon 20-Mutant Advanced Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer Journal of Clinical Oncology : 2025.

Stalker M, Marmarelis M, Langer C, Cohen RB, Singh A, Aggarwal C, Sun L.: Outcomes Following Treatment for Progression in Patients Treated With Durvalumab Consolidation in LA-NSCLC Clin Lung Cancer 26 (2): 124-130,2025.

Elghawy O, Barsouk A, Reed-Guy L, Stalker M, Sussman J, Robinson K, Kosteva J, Singh A, Cohen RB, Langer C, Ciunci C, D'Avella C, Sun L, Marmarelis ME, Aggarwal C.: Brief Report: Osimertinib Plus Capmatinib for Patients With MET-Altered EGFR-Mutant NSCLC Following Progression on Front Line Therapy Clin Lung Cancer 26 (2): 158-163,2025.

Marmarelis ME, Gilligan AM, Sugihara T, Zheng S, Marquart T, Whipple S, Bhandari NR, Aggarwal C.: HSR25-167: Real-World Study Demonstrates Lack of Biomarker-driven Care in First-Line Treatment for Advanced/Metastatic Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer That Received Next-Generation Sequencing Testing J Natl Compr Canc Netw 23 : 2025.

Reuss JE, Zaemes J, Gandhi N, Walker P, Patel SP, Xiu J, Aggarwal C, Vanderwalde A, Ramalingam SS, Halmos B, Liu SV.: Comprehensive molecular profiling of squamous non-small cell lung cancer reveals high incidence of actionable genomic alterations among patients with no history of smoking Lung Cancer 200 : 2025.

Stabellini N, Makram OM, Kunhiraman HH, Daoud H, Shanahan J, Montero AJ, Blumenthal RS, Aggarwal C, Swami U, Virani SS, Noronha V, Agarwal N, Dent S, Guha A.: A novel machine learning-based cancer-specific cardiovascular disease risk score among patients with breast, colorectal, or lung cancer JNCI Cancer Spectr 9 : pkaf016,2025.

Horgan D, Tanner M, Aggarwal C, Thomas D, Grover S, Basel-Salmon L, Dienstmann R, Tan TJY, Park WY, Abu Rasheed HM, Siu LL, Ma B, Ortiz-López R, Van den Bulcke M, Taucher SC, Ferris A, Starling N, Malapelle U, Longshore J, Saldaña HAB, Subbiah V.: Precision Oncology: A Global Perspective on Implementation and Policy Development JCO Glob Oncol 11 : 2025.

Grady CB, Hwang WT, Reuss JE, Iams W, Cass A, Liu G, Patel D, Liu SV, Montenegro GLB, Patil T, Nieva JJ, Herrmann A, Marrone KA, Lam VK, Schwartzman W, Dowell J, Villaruz LC, Miller KL, Weiss J, Sun F, Velcheti V, Camidge DR, Aggarwal C, Sun L, Marmarelis ME.: Determining Line of Therapy from Real-World Data in Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer Pharmacoepidemiol Drug Saf : 2024.

Stalker M, Grady CB, Watts A, Hwang WT, Chandrasekhara K, Sun F, Liu G, Patel D, Nieva J, Herrmann A, Marrone K, Lam VK, Velcheti V, Liu SV, Bravo Montenegro GL, Tompkins W, Patil T, Weiss J, Miller KL, Schwartzman W, Dowell JE, Shaverdashvili K, Villaruz L, Cass A, Iams W, Aisner D, Aggarwal C, Camidge DR, Sun L, Marmarelis ME.: Changing Treatment and Metastatic Disease Patterns in Patients with EGFR Mutated NSCLC: An Academic Thoracic Medical Investigator's Consortium Registry Analysis JTO Clinical and Research Reports 6 (1): 100765,2024.

Dizman N, Bakouny Z, Haykal T, Riano I, Desai A, Butt A, Basu A, Zhao D, Saad E, Saliby RM, Gosain R, Gosain R, Ardeshir F, Deng L, Matt-Amaral L, Arnaoutakis K, Bekaii-Saab T, Manochakian R, Marshall A, Forde P, Murphy M, Subbiah V, Chavez-MacGregor M, Owonikoko TK, Lopes G, Aggarwal C, Lee AI, Choueiri TK.: Guide to Understanding and Supporting International Medical Graduates in Hematology/Oncology by the ASCO International Medical Graduates Community of Practice JCO Oncol Pract : 2024.

Academic Contact Information

Perelman Center for Advanced Medicine
10-137, South Pavilion
3400 Civic Center Boulevard
Philadelphia, PA 19104
Phone: 215-662-6318
Patient appointments: 800-789-7366