He was Chair for the American Cancer Society Cell Structure and Metastasis (CSM) committee, a regular member of the Tumor Microenvironment (TME) NIH study section and Discussion Leader on NCI SPORE review panels. Currently, he is a member of the grant review panel for the Melanoma Research Alliance and serves on the Scientific Advisory Council (SAC) for the Melanoma Research Foundation. He is also an Associate Editor of Pigment Cell and Melanoma Research and serves on the editorial boards of Cancer Research and Molecular Cancer Research.

The Aplin lab is a multi-disciplinary group encompassing cell biologists, molecular biologists, immunologists, and a bio-informatics specialist. We collaborate with other research groups both nationally and internationally. The lab is currently funded by grants from the NIH/NCI, the Melanoma Research Alliance, the Melanoma Research Foundation, the Adelson Medical Research Foundation and the Falk Medical Research Trust. In addition, many of our post-doctoral fellows and graduate students have been successful in obtaining independent funding from agencies such as NIH/NCI, American Association for Cancer Research (AACR), American Cancer Society (ACS), and OutRun the Sun