My overarching goal is to improve the care of patients with known or suspected lung cancer who are undergoing advanced bronchoscopic procedures. In addition to my work as a Physician Scientist, I am an Interventional Pulmonologist with MPH training in clinical trial design and biostatistics. Our research program is comprised of a diverse highly collaborative, multidisciplinary research team that leverages biological, quantitative, and clinical sciences to address critical dilemmas within the lung cancer care pathway. 

One of the primary pillars of our research laboratory is the investigation of intratumoral therapy for lung cancer. Specifically, our group is investigating the pharmacodynamics of bronchoscopic intratumoral delivery of cisplatin. The cisplatin is delivered under the guidance of endobronchial ultrasound (EBUS) and cone-beam CT scan, allowing us to precisely determine the delivery location for transbronchial needle injection (TBNI) into the tumor.    Using radiomics image analysis, we recently demonstrated that measures of tumor density are better predictors of response to EBUS-TBNI cisplatin versus metrics of tumor morphology (J Thorac Dis). We also constructed a computational model based on tumor morphology based derived from the CT scan and cisplatin blood levels from a treated patient that predicts 5 injections may be superior to 1 for delivery of intratumoral cisplatin (Scientific Reports). 

Our laboratory also utilizes quantitative image analysis and computational modeling to evaluate lung cancer risk, staging, and therapy. We recently leveraged data from the National Lung Screening Trial to evaluate the risk of mediastinal lymph node metastasis based on cancer location.  By codifying location using a 3D Cartesian coordinate system, we were able to demonstrate that there is a significant risk of lung cancer metastasis even among peripheral T1 lesions (Chest).