Research Resident
Department of General Surgery, John Hopkins University School of Medicine
Dr. Julia Purchla is currently a NIH funded T32 Post-doctoral Research Fellow at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine within the Division of Hepatobiliary and Pancreas Surgery at The Johns Hopkins Hospital. Dr. Purchla received her medical degree from the Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University, where she pursued translational clinical research within the Department of Surgical Oncology at the Fox Chase Cancer Center focusing on mutational profiles of colon and rectal cancers and their impact on patient outcomes. She is completing residency in general surgery at North Shore University Hospital/Long Island Jewish Medical Center, Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell, where she has also contributed to translational clinical research within the field of surgical oncology. Her current research focuses on describing immune cell-tumor cell interactions within the tumor microenvironment in pancreatic adenocarcinoma to provide a rationale for novel immunotherapy therapeutics and to improve patient outcomes.