Research Associate

Raik received his degree at the Georg-August University of Goettingen in Germany. After his ERAUSMS at the University of Manchester he finished his diploma thesis in 2012 in the field of organic/peptide chemistry. He was awarded his PhD in the field of Medicinal Chemistry and Chemical Biology at the University of Glasgow (UK) in 2017. His main research interest here at MSKCC is the research on novel PET and fluorescent tracers, particularly targeting the DNA repair enzyme ATR as well as the KRAS G12C mutated GTPase to image cancer lesions.

Research Scholar

Tullio completed his clinical training as a pharmacist and PhD at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver Canada. His research at MSKCC focuses on how to reduce salivary gland toxicity associated with PSMA-based radiotherapy and using nuclear imaging to better understand and formulate cancer immunotherapies. He holds a Tow Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship in molecular imaging.

Oncology Fellow

Ali received his MD degree from Kuwait University. He then completed his urology residency from University of Miami. He joined Memorial Sloan Kettering Urologic Oncology Program, with interest in artificial intelligence in surgery, and bladder cancer research. He is currently developing immunoPET and fluorescent imaging agents to aid the diagnosis and surgical management of bladder cancer.

Research Fellow

Vilma graduated with a MSc degree in Radiochemistry from the University of Helsinki in 2018. In 2022, Vilma was awarded a PhD in Chemical and Physical Biology from Vanderbilt University. She is interested in the preclinical development of PET imaging agents for cancer and neurodegenerative diseases, and also in utilizing nuclear imaging techniques to understand the biological behavior of cancer therapeutics.

Research Fellow

Ruediger received his B.Sc. and M.Sc. in chemistry at the University of Wuppertal in Germany. After taking part in the ERASMUS program at the University of Oulu, and a short research stay at the Max-Planck Institute for Coal Research, he finished his master's thesis in 2018. He was awarded his PhD in the field of medicinal chemistry at the University of Bath (UK) in 2022. His main research interest is the development of novel PET tracers, particularly for investigations into carbohydrate metabolism and immunotherapy.

Research Fellow

Giovanna received an MD degree from University of Mogi das Cruzes (Brazil) in 2018. Subsequently, she completed a residency in General Surgery and further specialized in Head & Neck Surgery from Universidade Federal de Sao Paulo (Brazil). Her primary interest in the Pillarsetty lab lies in using imaging agents to improve diagnostic measures and clinical outcomes for patients.

Senior Research Assistant

Teja received his BS in Pharmaceutucal Sciences from the Sitha Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences and his MS in Pharmacology from Long Island University. He is currently developing methods to validate radiopharmaceutical theranostic agents in vitro and in vivo with cancer models. Teja was awarded the the 2022 CMIIT Laboratory Professional award for his accomplishments in the lab.

Research Technician

Alexa is a recent graduate of the City University of New York, Hunter College, where she majored in Human Biology. Her work mostly focuses on developing and validating anti-DLL3 imaging targets for small cell lung cancer and their uses in therapy. She also does work on characterizing oral, esophageal, and ovarian tumors using the imaging agent, PARPi-Fl.

Research Technician

Tara graduated in 2020 with a degree in Biochemistry from the School of Environmental and Biological Sciences at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, NJ. In 2020, she joined MSK as a technician where she worked on translational research aimed at detecting oral and esophageal cancer biomarkers utilizing imaging agent, PARPi-FL. She is now working in the Lewis and Pillarsetty laboratories where she is happily continuing this work as well as learning new techniques and skills.

Research Scholar

Evan received his BA in Biology from Skidmore College, and his PhD in Pharmacology from Weill Cornell Medical College. His graduate thesis focused on nanoparticles for drug delivery and cancer immunotherapy. He is currently interested in studying interactions between nanoscale materials and biological systems.

Connect with Evan on LinkedIn

Senior Administrative Assistant

Kevin has provided administrative services to the Pillarsetty lab since its inception.

Graduate Student

Daniel received his BSc degree from the University of Ghana, Legon in Biochemistry, Cell and Molecular biology. After, he worked at the West African Center for Biology and Infectious Pathogens and the Center for Plant Medicine Research. He is currently a PhD student at Hunter College. Daniel is currently investigating the 5HT7 receptor as a therapeutic target and diagnostic biomarker in cancer.

Graduate Student

Rachel received her HBS degree in Chemistry from the University of Utah. She is a PhD student in the Pharmacology program at Weill Cornell Graduate School, performing research in the Lewis and Pillarsetty labs. Rachel is interested in how target receptor density may impact tumor response to targeted radiotherapy.

Research Technician

Kali graduated from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County in 2022, majoring in Biology. She joined MSK as a research technician, where she assists in a variety of studies involving cancer imaging and development of tracers. She is currently interested in validating tracers for breast cancer and oral squamous cell carcinoma.

Research Technician

Joo Sun recently received her BA degree in Biochemistry from the Macaulay Honors Program at Hunter College. Currently, she has joined MSK as a research technician in the Pillarsetty lab. Her focus lies in performing translational research by utilizing several PNS-targeting imaging agents to improve nerve-sparing surgical procedures as well as using the PARPi-FL imaging agent to diagnose and classify surgical margins for oral cancer.