Tulpule Lab
Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
People
Asmin Tulpule
Principal Investigator
Asmin received his B.A. from Princeton University (2002) in Molecular Biology with a Certificate in Biophysics. He completed his PhD in Dr. George Daley’s lab at Boston Children’s Hospital and received his MD from Harvard Medical School. After his MD/PhD studies, Asmin completed Pediatric Residency and Pediatric Hematology/Oncology Fellowship at UCSF. His postdoctoral work was performed in Dr. Trever Bivona’s lab studying RTK fusion oncoprotein condensates and Ewing sarcoma/FET fusion oncoprotein biology. Asmin launched his own independent research group in 2017 as a UCSF Physician-Scientist Scholar and moved to NYC in 2022 to join the faculty at MSKCC and Cornell.
Sumit Dey
Senior Research Scientist
Sumit grew up in Kolkata, India, where he did his bachelor’s and master’s in chemistry. He then pursued his PhD in Cell biology at the Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science (IACS), Kolkata. He joined the Tulpule Lab as a Senior Research Scientist in November 2022. Currently, he is exploring the structural components and the assembly rules of phase separated membrane-less biomolecular condensates (or granules!) in patient derived NSCLC. He aims to eventually connect the phase separation behavior (Csat) and its functional consequence in cells. In his spare time, he explores new places and captures emotions through photography.
Daniel Gracilla
Postdoctoral Fellow
Daniel is a postdoctoral researcher in the Tulpule Laboratory at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK). Prior to joining MSK, he was a postdoctoral fellow at the Georgia Cancer Center, where his research focused on the role of ATF3 in serine metabolism and DNA damage repair under the supervision of Dr. Chunhong Yan.
Daniel earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Biology from Pampanga State Agricultural University, where his early research focuses on chromosomal abnormalities. He later took bridging coursework in Molecular Genetics and Genetic Manipulation at the University of the Philippines before pursuing his Ph.D. in Biomedical Science (Cancer and Molecular Biology) at National Sun Yat-sen University in Taiwan. Under the supervision of Dr. Jim Jinn-Chyuan Sheu, his doctoral research focused on identifying mutations that contribute to cancer progression. Currently at MSK, Daniel is working with Dr. Asmin Tulpule to elucidate the role of FET and FET-fusion proteins in DNA damage response and repair.
Ananya Mukherjee
Postdoctoral Fellow
Ananya Mukherjee is a postdoctoral fellow whose path into cell biology was anything but linear. After a B.Sc. in Chemistry and an M.Sc. in Biochemistry (both from M.S University of Baroda, Gujarat, India), she “accidentally” found herself captivated by cell biology during her Ph.D. (from inStem–NCBS, Bangalore, India), where she developed fluorescent biosensors and was introduced to the world of microscopy. Her postdoctoral training has been shaped by advanced imaging and cancer cell biology—first in the Bravo-Cordero lab (at the Icahn School of Medicine, Mount Sinai, New York), where she worked with multiphoton and super-resolution microscopy, and now in the Tulpule lab, where she studies the signaling logic of novel cytoplasmic condensates with implications for ALK-driven non-small cell lung cancer. Her current work integrates live-cell imaging, biosensor development, and mechanistic signaling analysis to understand how these condensates rewire Ras/MAPK pathways.
In a previous life during her Ph.D., Ananya was also a thespian—an experience that continues to shape how she communicates and engages with the world. It has made her passionate about exploring cultures through art and food across New York City’s vibrant landscape. Beyond the bench, she is committed to building community: she serves on the MSK Postdoctoral Association’s International Committee and is involved in multiple career-support groups across the institution and the city.
Surabhi Menon
Graduate Candidate - MSK
Arturo Salazar
Graduate Candidate - MSK
Surabhi is a third-year pediatric hematology–oncology fellow at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and joined the laboratory in her second year of fellowship. Her clinical interests center on pediatric sarcomas, with a particular focus on osteosarcoma.
In the laboratory, she studies osteosarcoma using patient-derived xenograft models and primary patient tumor samples. Through integrative proteogenomic approaches, her research aims to identify proteins that contribute to disease persistence following chemotherapy, with the goal of uncovering novel therapeutic vulnerabilities.
Outside of the hospital and the lab, she enjoys running throughout New York City and exploring its food scene.
Josh Li
Graduate Candidate - Cornell Weill
Josh is originally from the Philly suburbs and is currently a 2nd year PhD student in the BCMB program at Weill Cornell. He graduated from the University of Michigan with a bachelor’s degree in Biochemistry, where he joined the Bardwell Lab to study a nicotine degrading enzyme using directed evolution to improve its reaction kinetics as a possible novel therapeutic for smoking cessation. After graduating, he joined Incyte Corporation in Wilmington, DE working as a Research Contractor developing assays to generate cell-based therapies for myeloproliferative neoplasms. Josh joined the Tulpule Lab in 2025 to explore EML4-ALK biomolecular condensate biology and signaling, and is interested in developing novel molecular tools to study condensate biology/biophysics. In his free time, Josh enjoys cooking, running, and going on adventures using public transit.
Arturo is originally from Southern California. He is a PhD candidate in the Cancer Biology program of the Gerstner Sloan Kettering Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences at MSKCC. He graduated from the University of California, Irvine with a bachelor's degree in biological sciences. At UCI, he initially trained in Dr. Luis Mota-Bravo's lab studying the role of environmental bacteria in the accumulation and global dissemination of antibiotic resistance genes. He then joined Dr. Claudia Benavente’s lab to investigate determinants of osteosarcoma tumorigenesis and metastasis. Arturo joined the Tulpule lab in 2024 to explore novel protein-based structures known as biomolecular condensates, their role in cancer, and a condensate directed therapeutic approach. In his spare time, he enjoys weightlifting and recharging at home with his two cats (one he rescued in California, and another he adopted here).
Teresa Vizconde
Senior Research Technician
Teresa hails from Ontario, Canada where she received her BSc with honors in Biochemistry at the University of Waterloo. Immediately after graduating, she trained in plant biology while also obtaining a Medical Laboratory Assistant diploma, the latter of which ultimately led to her relocating to New York to take care of her grandmother post-surgery. In New York, she studied human and murine B1 cell development at the Feinstein Institute for Medical Research. Continuing her interest in immunology, she then worked under Dr. Guenther Koehne and Dr. Richard O’Reilly in the Bone Marrow Transplantation laboratory at MSKCC, studying WT1 peptide-specific T cells in blood and bone marrow of patients treated with allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation. Currently, she studies the effects of therapeutic drugs on xenograft mouse models with NSCLC in the Tulpule lab. To stay active outside the lab, she enjoys kickboxing, is currently a purple belt in taekwondo, and has ran 11 marathons in the past nine years.
Nicholas Everin
Research Technician
Nicholas grew up in the Boston area and he moved to NYC to join the Tulpule Lab in the summer of 2025 as a research technician. Before coming to MSK, he graduated with a degree in Molecular and Cellular Biology from Bowdoin College in 2025. At Bowdoin, he researched promoter competition for enhancer action and how physical interactions of chromosomes impact transcription in Drosophila melanogaster in Professor Jack Bateman’s lab. His research in the Bateman lab sparked his interest into the importance of maintaining chromosomal structure and the disease implications when this structure breaks down. In the Tulpule lab, he has explored this interest through researching the impact of the FET fusion oncoproteins, which drive many pediatric sarcomas, on DNA repair. Outside of the lab, he fills his time by running around central park, cooking new recipes, attempting to learn to knit, and hiking when he gets out of the city.