She is board-certified in internal medicine, medical oncology and hematology. Dr. Villaruz's clinical expertise and research focuses on the evaluation and management of lung cancer and other thoracic malignancies. As an active member of the Lung and Thoracic Malignancies Program and the University of Pittsburgh's Specialized Program of Research Excellence (SPORE) in lung cancer, Dr. Villaruz actively accrues and is the principal investigator of several ongoing clinical trials at the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute evaluating novel therapeutic approaches to the treatment of lung cancer. Her research focuses on delineating the clinical behavior of novel molecular subtypes of lung cancer, and the study of novel targeted agents for the treatment of these lung cancer molecular subtypes.