Charu Aggarwal, MD, MPH, FASCO
Leslye M. Heisler Professor for Lung Cancer Excellence
Department: Medicine
Contact information
Perelman Center for Advanced Medicine
10th Floor, South Pavilion
3400 Civic Center Boulevard
Philadelphia, PA 19104
10th Floor, South Pavilion
3400 Civic Center Boulevard
Philadelphia, PA 19104
Education
MD
Lady Hardinge Medical College, New Delhi, India, 2003.
MPH (Health Care Organization and Policy)
University of Alabama at Birmingham, 2005.
Permanent linkMD
Lady Hardinge Medical College, New Delhi, India, 2003.
MPH (Health Care Organization and Policy)
University of Alabama at Birmingham, 2005.
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
Aggarwal C, Sterman D, Dwyer J, Alesi ER, Maldonado F, Mehra R, Bestvina C, Reisenauer J, Patel S, Ibrahim O, Eapen G, Guesdon W, Chung MWH, Duault C, Pichavant MR, Gnjatic S, Kim-Schulze S, Maecker HT, Diers AR, Guo Q, Nichols G, Manzanera A, Barone F, Tak PP.: Prolonged survival after systemic immune reactivation by aglatimagene besadenovec plus valacyclovir in immune checkpoint inhibitor-refractory non-small cell lung cancer. J Immunother Cancer 14: e015821, Sep 2026.Bleiberg BA, Ito M, Marmarelis M, Krishna V, Nimgaonkar V, Zhang H, Royce TJ, Tsutani Y, Kozono D, Aggarwal C.: A Computational Histology Artificial Intelligence Prognostic Biomarker in Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer Using the Cancer Genome Atlas. Cancers (Basel) 18: 2916, Sep 2026.
Lova Sun, Willdragon Wang, Keelia Clemens, Kyle Chang, Leslie Bucheit, Melina E. Marmarelis, Aditi Singh, Corey J. Langer, Roger B. Cohen & Charu Aggarwal: Long-term ctDNA reassessment in NSCLC immunotherapy responders. Nature Sept 2026.
Meyer ML, Peters S, Borghaei H, Cascone T, Dacic S, Faivre-Finn C, Leighl N, Paz-Ares L, Aerts J, Aggarwal C, Ahn MJ, Arcila ME, Ardizzoni A, Arrieta O, Awad MM, Bar J, Barlesi F, Bazhenova L, Besse B, Chaft J, Cho BC, Curioni Fontecedro A, DE Ruysscher D, Dingemans AM, Dziadziuszko R, Felip E, Forde P, Gandara DR, Garassino MC, Garcia Campelo R, Garrido Lopez P, Gautschi O, Girard N, Goto Y, Gray J, Hendriks L, Hirsch F, Hui R, Janne PA, Kerr K, Khorshid O, Pechoux CLE, Leal T, Lin JJ, Linardou H, Liu S, Mahrous M, Malapelle U, Mercadante E, Mitsudomi T, Mok T, Mountzios G, Naidoo J, Normanno N, Novello S, Oliveira J, Pappagallo G, Perrone G, Pérol M, Raez LE, Ramella S, Rami-Porta R, Reckamp K, Reguart Aransay N, Remon Masip J, Ricardi U, Ricciuti B, Rodriguez-Abreu D, Rotow JK, Santos ES, Schalper K, Senan S, Seto T, Skoulidis F, Smit EF, Soares M, Solli P, Solomon B, Soo RA, Stahel R, Stiles BM, VAN Schil P, Veronesi G, Wistuba II, Wolf J, Wu YL, Zer A, Rolfo C, Landi L, Cappuzzo F.: Bridging evidence and practice: international multidisciplinary consensus on non-metastatic NSCLC. J Thorac Oncol Jul 2026.
Barsouk AA, Yaskolko M, Sussman JH, Sun L, Singh AP, Cohen RB, Aggarwal C, Marmarelis ME, Langer CJ.: Poor Performance Status Associated With Inferior Tarlatamab Outcomes in a Large, Multi-institution Real-World Database of Patients With 2L + ES-SCLC. Clin Lung Cancer 27: 50-55, Jul 2026.
Wang W, Scholes DG, Watts AC, Roy MA, Singhal S, Kucharczuk JC, Jarrar D, Predina J, Pechet TTV, Sun LL, Singh AP, Cohen RB, Langer CJ, Aggarwal C, Marmarelis ME.: EMBER-Lung: Electronic Medical Record Boosting Molecular Testing in Early-Stage Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer. JCO Precis Oncol July 2026.
Marmarelis ME, Gilligan AM, Sugihara T, Marquart T, Whipple S, Wang Y, Allen-Coyle TJ, Bhandari NR, Aggarwal C.: The Waiting Game: How NGS and Guideline-Concordant-Care Timing Shape Survival in Advanced NSCLC. Cancers (Basel) 18: 2287, Jul 2026.
Reisenauer JS, DiBardino DM, Criner GJ, Hunt SJ, Panaro J, Friedberg J, Mansfield AS, Aggarwal C, Bodor JN, Callstrom MR.: Safety and pathologic response of neoadjuvant pulsed electric field ablation and systemic therapy in early-stage resectable lung cancer: case series. J Thorac Dis 18: 669, Jun 2026.
Bleiberg BA, Scholes DG, Reed-Guy L, Dravid D, Sun LL, Singh AP, Cohen RB, Langer CJ, Marmarelis ME, Aggarwal C.: Erratum to "The incremental value of liquid biopsy in the initial evaluation of patients with metastatic non-small cell lung cancer undergoing tissue-based molecular testing" [J. Liq. Biopsy 12 (2026) 100461] J Liq Biopsy 12: 100472, May 2026.
Klein M, Watson D, Castro M, Kapoor S, Nair PR, Rajagopalan S, Qin H, Glaser M, Westanmo A, Lala DA, Kumar A, Chauhan J, G P, Ullal YS, Kulkarni S, Narvekar Y, Ghosh A, Tyagi A, Patil M, Macpherson MD, Wingrove JA, Patil T, Aggarwal C, Ganti AK.: Use of an Integrative Genomics Approach to Identify Metastatic NSCLC Patients Benefiting From the Addition of Chemotherapy to Immune Checkpoint Inhibitors. Clin Lung Cancer May 2026.