Molecular Pharmacology Program
The Karuna Ganesh Lab
Research

Assistant Professor
Metastasis causes >90% of cancer death. The emergence, persistence, therapy resistance and lethality of metastatic cancer is driven by dynamic and tenacious metastasis stem cells (MetScs). The Ganesh lab focuses on understanding the molecular mechanisms that underlie the emergence of regenerative plasticity during metastasis. We employ cutting edge patient-derived organoid and mouse models of colorectal cancer, transcriptomic, epigenomic and single cell approaches, and mechanistic studies to: (1) elucidate how tumor invasion and dissemination induce phenotypic plasticity enabling the emergence of pro-metastatic regenerative traits (2) dissect the role of stromal cells, including immune cells, in promoting and constraining MetSC plasticity (3) define key signaling nodes that drive MetSC plasticity and develop therapeutic strategies for targeting such vulnerabilities and (4) collaborate with clinicians to understand mechanisms of therapy resistance in metastasis.

Featured News



Publications Highlights
Moorman AR, Cambuli F, Benitez EK, Jiang Q, Xie Y, Mahmoud A, Lumish M, Hartner S, Balkaran S, Bermeo J, Asawa S, Firat C, Saxena A, Luthra A, Sgambati V, Luckett K, Wu F, Li Y, Yi Z, Masilionis I, Soares K, Pappou E, Yaeger R, Kingham P, Jarnagin W, Paty P, Weiser MR, Mazutis L, D’Angelica M, Shia J, Garcia-Aguilar J, Nawy T, Hollmann TJ, Chaligné R, Sanchez-Vega F, Sharma R, Pe’er D, Ganesh K. Progressive plasticity during colorectal cancer metastasis. bioRxiv [Preprint]. 2023 Aug 21:2023.08.18.553925. doi: 10.1101/2023.08.18.553925. PMID: 37662289; PMCID: PMC10473595.
Gerstberger S, Jiang Q, Ganesh K. Metastasis. Cell. 2023 Apr 13;186(8):1564-1579. doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2023.03.003. PMID: 37059065; PMCID: PMC10511214.
Ganesh K. Uncoupling Metastasis from Tumorigenesis. N Engl J Med. 2023 Feb 16;388(7):657-659. doi: 10.1056/NEJMcibr2213497. PMID: 36791168; PMCID: PMC10375401.
Ganesh K, Basnet H, Kaygusuz Y, Laughney AM, He L, Sharma R, O’Rourke KP, Reuter VP, Huang YH, Turkekul M, Er EE, Masilionis I, Manova-Todorova K, Weiser MR, Saltz LB, Garcia-Aguilar J, Koche R, Lowe SW, Pe’er D, Shia J, Massagué J. L1CAM defines the regenerative origin of metastasis-initiating cells in colorectal cancer. Nat Cancer. 2020 Jan;1(1):28-45. doi: 10.1038/s43018-019-0006-x. Epub 2020 Jan 13. Erratum in: Nat Cancer. 2020 Nov;1(11):1128. PMID: 32656539; PMCID: PMC7351134.
Ganesh K, Wu C, O’Rourke KP, Szeglin BC, Zheng Y, Sauvé CG, Adileh M, Wasserman I, Marco MR, Kim AS, Shady M, Sanchez-Vega F, Karthaus WR, Won HH, Choi SH, Pelossof R, Barlas A, Ntiamoah P, Pappou E, Elghouayel A, Strong JS, Chen CT, Harris JW, Weiser MR, Nash GM, Guillem JG, Wei IH, Kolesnick RN, Veeraraghavan H, Ortiz EJ, Petkovska I, Cercek A, Manova-Todorova KO, Saltz LB, Lavery JA, DeMatteo RP, Massagué J, Paty PB, Yaeger R, Chen X, Patil S, Clevers H, Berger MF, Lowe SW, Shia J, Romesser PB, Dow LE, Garcia-Aguilar J, Sawyers CL, Smith JJ. A rectal cancer organoid platform to study individual responses to chemoradiation. Nat Med. 2019 Oct;25(10):1607-1614. doi: 10.1038/s41591-019-0584-2. Epub 2019 Oct 7. PMID: 31591597; PMCID: PMC7385919.
People

Karuna Ganesh, MD, PhD
Assistant Member and Medical Oncologist
Assistant Professor
- Physician-scientist Karuna Ganesh studies stem cell plasticity in metastasis, therapy resistance and tissue regeneration.
- MD, PhD, University of Cambridge (UK)
- [email protected]
- Email Address
- View physician profile
- Physician profile
Members




- PhD in Molecular and Genetics biology, Tsinghua University, China, 2018
- BS in life science, Xiamen University, China, 2012
- 646-888-3997
- Lab Phone








MD/PhD Student

Research Scholar
Research Assistant

Medical Oncology Fellow
Senior Research Technician

Administrative Assistant

Research Associate

Assistant Attending, Colorectal Service

Medical Oncology Fellow

MD/PhD Student

Graduate Student, Weill Cornell Pharmacology Program
Research Fellow
Research Technician
Computational Biologist

PhD Student/Gerstner Sloan Kettering Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences

Postdoctoral Fellow

Research Technician

Clinical Research Project Associate

Research Technician

- MSc Translational Medical Research, University of Heidelberg, Germany 2019
- BTech Biotechnology, NIT Warangal, India 2018
- 646-888-3990
- Lab Phone





- PhD in Biochemistry at University of Naples Federico II
- Post Doc University of Alberta/Canada
- Post Doc Columbia University
- 646-888-3990
- Lab Phone

Lab Alumni

PhD student, ETH Zurich

Postdoctoral Fellow, Dana Farber Cancer Institute

Research Technician

Research Fellow
Lab Manager
Graduate Student, Weill Cornell Pharmacology Program
Lab SKI Admin II

Administrative Assistant

Graduate Research Assistant
Administrative Assistant

Surgical Oncology Fellow
Research Scientist at Frequency Therapeutics

Lab Assistant

Lab Affiliations
Achievements
- Metastasis Research Society Sue Eccles Early Career Investigator Award (2024)
- HHMI Freeman Hrabowski Scholar Finalist (2023)
- Pershing Square Sohn Prize for Cancer Research (2022)
- NIH/NCI R37 MERIT Award (2022)
- HHMI Gilliam Scholar Award(Mahmoud/Ganesh) (2022)
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- AACR NextGen Award for Transformative Cancer Research (2020)
- Phillip A. Sharp Innovation Award, Stand Up to Cancer (2022)
- Josie Robertson Investigator (2019-2024)
- Damon Runyon Clinical Investigator Award (2019)
- Burroughs Wellcome Career Award for Medical Scientists (2019)
- NIH/NCI K08 Clinician Scientist Career Development Award (2018)
- Investigator, Stand Up to Cancer Colorectal Cancer Dream Team (2017)
- American Cancer Society Postdoctoral Fellowship (2017)
- Shulamit Katzman Endowed Postdoctoral Fellowship (2017)
- Conquer Cancer Foundation of ASCO Young Investigator Award (2016)
- AACR Basic Cancer Research Fellowship (2016)
- MRC-LMB PhD Scholarship (2006)
- Gates Cambridge Scholarship (2004)
Open Positions
To learn more about available postdoctoral opportunities, please visit our Career Center
To learn more about compensation and benefits for postdoctoral researchers at MSK, please visit Resources for Postdocs
Career Opportunities
Get in Touch
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Lab Head Email
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1-646-888-5263
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1-646-888-3963
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1-646-888-3990
Disclosures
Doctors and faculty members often work with pharmaceutical, device, biotechnology, and life sciences companies, and other organizations outside of MSK, to find safe and effective cancer treatments, to improve patient care, and to educate the health care community.
MSK requires doctors and faculty members to report (“disclose”) the relationships and financial interests they have with external entities. As a commitment to transparency with our community, we make that information available to the public.
Karuna Ganesh discloses the following relationships and financial interests:
No disclosures meeting criteria for time period
The information published here is a complement to other publicly reported data and is for a specific annual disclosure period. There may be differences between information on this and other public sites as a result of different reporting periods and/or the various ways relationships and financial interests are categorized by organizations that publish such data.
This page and data include information for a specific MSK annual disclosure period (January 1, 2023 through disclosure submission in spring 2024). This data reflects interests that may or may not still exist. This data is updated annually.
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