Team Members

Current Faculty Leaders

Sunil Singhal, MD (2007-present) is the William M. Measey Professor of Surgery, Chief, Division of Thoracic Surgery, Vice Chair, Translational Research, Department of Surgery, University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine. He obtained his Doctor of Medicine degree from the University of Pennsylvania and received post-graduate training at Johns-Hopkins and University of Pennsylvania. His research interests in nanotechnology, intraoperative immune suppression, muscle physiology, patient outcome, myeloid derived suppressor cells, and gene-expression and profiling are what drives the laboratories’ core experimental philosophy.

Evgeniy Eruslanov, PhD (2013-present) Associate Professor, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. Dr. Eruslanov is a tumor immunologist with a research focus on myeloid derived cells, focusing on the complex interaction between immune cells and the tumor microenvironment. His work has been internationally cited for his contribution to neutrophil biology.

Current Lab Members

Azra Din, MPH, BS (2018 - present) is a Project Manager to Dr. Sunil Singhal in the Department of Surgery at the University of Pennsylvania. She graduated from Temple University with a Master in Public Health (in Health Administration and Policy) and a B.S. in Neuroscience. She has experience researching vitamin D deficiency and cell culture at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. She currently manages Dr. Singhal’s INDs and studies for Lung, Pituitary, Urology, Colorectal, Otorhinolaryngology, and Gastrointestinal malignancies. In addition, she is a surgical scribe in Dr. Singhal’s clinic. Her career goal is to become a Clinical Research Director.

Jake Mlakar, BS (2022 - present) is a Chemistry PhD Student with a concentration in Biological Chemistry. He earned his B.S. in Biochemistry in 2020 from The Ohio State University. There, under the guidance of Dr. Zachary Schultz, Jake performed research on monosaccharide detection utilizing surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy. Currently, he is developing novel cancer therapeutics and intraoperative imaging agents for fluorescence-guided surgery.

Vincent Ni, BA (2025 - Present) is a Harrison Surgical Scholar in the Department of Surgery. He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with his B.A. in Molecular and Cell Biology and Political Science with minors in Chemistry and Survey Research & Data Analytics. As an undergraduate, he worked on transcriptional induction of immune lineages from induced pluripotent stem cells and cancer prognosis via molecular pathology. Outside of research, he also worked on federal healthcare financing at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Vincent plans to pursue a career in medical oncology and health policy. 

Abhishek S. Rao (2025–present) is a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Surgery. He earned his Ph.D. in Microbiology and Immunology from Drexel University in 2024, where his doctoral research focused on uncovering mechanisms and risk factors underlying age-specific host responses to respiratory viral infections. His current research explores the tumor microenvironment and its influence on immune cell function, with a particular interest in developing and improving immunotherapeutic strategies.

Jerica Tidwell, DO (2025–present) is a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow in the Department of Surgery and a fourth-year General Surgery Resident at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. She graduated from San Diego State University with a B.A. in Biology and earned her medical degree from the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine. Her research experience includes conducting clinical trials in targeted immunotherapy and precision oncology, population-based studies on cancer outcomes and disparities, and basic science investigations exploring mechanisms of immune evasion in breast cancer, with a focus on T-cell dynamics and response to immunotherapy. Her current work centers on investigating the link between microplastics and lung disease and studying immune cell interactions in lung cancer, including mechanisms of immune suppression and enhancing anti-tumor immune responses. Jerica plans to pursue a career as an independent surgeon-scientist advancing precision treatments for thoracic malignancies.