Charu Aggarwal, MD, MPH, FASCO
Leslye M. Heisler Professor for Lung Cancer Excellence
Associate Director, Penn Center for Cancer Care Innovation (PC3I)
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
Adam Barsouk, Maxim Yaskolko, Jonathan H. Sussman, Lova Sun, Roger B. Cohen, Charu Aggarwal, Corey J. Langer, Melina E. Marmarelis: Sotorasib vs adagrasib in the 2L+ setting: Outcomes in a large, multi-institutional, real-world database of KRAS-G12C mutated mNSCLC. J Clin Oncol May 2026.Lova Sun, Willdragon Wang, Kyle Chang, Leslie A. Bucheit, Keelia Clemens, Aditi P. Singh, Melina E. Marmarelis, Roger B. Cohen, Corey J. Langer, Charu Aggarwal: Long-term ctDNA reassessment (LTctDNA) in NSCLC immunotherapy responders. J Clin Oncol May 2026.
Melina E. Marmarelis, Jessica Dow, Journey Penney, Binyam Yilma, Alexis Aiello, Marina Codari, Chithra Sangli, Karen Huelsman, Andrew J. Parchman, Charu Aggarwal, Sarah G. Thompson, Natraj R. Ammakkanavar, George R. Simon, Amol Rao, Gautum Agarwal, Ezra E. Cohen, Jyoti D. Patel, Noah Zimmerman: Multi-center prospective study evaluating an AI-enabled clinical decision support tool to improve biomarker testing in early-stage NSCLC. J Clin Oncol May 2026.
Adam Barsouk, Jonathan H. Sussman, Maxim Yaskolko, Lova Sun, Aditi P. Singh, Charu Aggarwal, Roger B. Cohen, Melina E. Marmarelis, Corey J. Langer: Performance status and tarlatamab outcomes in a large, multi-institution real-world database of 2L+ ES-SCLC. J Clin Oncol May 2026.
Teja Voruganti, Yi Lian, Benjamin A. Bleiberg, Lauren Reed-Guy, Roger B. Cohen, David J. Cantor, Kyle W. Robinson, Christopher D'Avella, Christine A. Ciunci, Melina E. Marmarelis, Aditi P. Singh, Corey J. Langer, Lova Sun, Charu Aggarwal: SPARK-Lung: A study of patterns and outcomes in young-onset lung cancer. J Clin Oncol 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.
Phurin Areesawangkit, Adam Barsouk, Maxim Yaskolko, Lucy Wang, Cole Friedes, Roger B. Cohen, Lova Sun, Charu Aggarwal, Melina E. Marmarelis, Aditi P. Singh, Kyle W. Robinson, Christopher D'Avella, Christine A. Ciunci, Steven J. Feigenberg, Jeffrey D. Bradley, Nikhil Yegya-Raman, Michelle Iocolano, Christiana Davis, Corey J. Langer: Long-term survival outcomes of consolidative local ablative therapy after response to first-line systemic treatment in oligometastatic NSCLC. J Clin Oncol May 2026.
Michelle A. Worst, Andrew Small, Amy Furedy, Charu Aggarwal, Sandip P. Patel: The impact of online CME on addressing clinical decision-making for immunotherapy in advanced squamous NSCLC. J Clin Oncol May 2026.
Xavier Orcutt, Vivek Nimgaonkar, Lova Sun, Charu Aggarwal, Aaron B. Cohen, Ronac Mamtani, Qi Long, Ravi B. Parikh: Machine learning risk stratification in a US-based database to identify subgroups of patients with PD-L1-high NSCLC who benefit from adding chemotherapy to pembrolizumab. J Clin Oncol May 2026.
Rachel Jaber Chehayeb, Willdragon Wang, Lova Sun, Aditi P. Singh, Roger B. Cohen, Corey J. Langer, Charu Aggarwal, Melina E. Marmarelis: Incidentally discovered lung cancer in explanted lungs at the time of lung transplantation: Management and outcomes. J Clin Oncol May 2026.