Erica Carpenter, MBA, PhD University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine

Erica L. Carpenter, MBA, PhD, is the director of the Liquid Biopsy Laboratory and a Research Assistant Professor in the Department of Medicine, Division of Hematology/Oncology at the University of Pennsylvania.

She completed her doctoral studies in the Biomedical Graduate Studies immunology program at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. She subsequently completed post-doctoral training in the field of cancer genetics at the Oncology Division of the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.

Prior to joining Penn, Dr. Carpenter obtained a Masters in Business Administration at the Tuck School at Dartmouth College, and worked as a business executive for a Fortune 50 manufacturer. Over the course of her business career, she had profit and loss responsibility for divisions with >$2 billion revenue, and participated in the management of both domestic and overseas business units.

Dr. Carpenter’s NCI-funded research programs focus on the identification, capture, and analysis of circulating tumor cells, exosomes, and cell-free circulating tumor DNA from cancer patients. The overarching goal is to utilize molecular profiling of circulating tumor material to improve the delivery of precision medicine by informing individualized treatment decisions, and targeting the most aggressive cancer cells. For our patients, this means better care and less discomfort.