Memorial Hospital Research Laboratories

The Kayvan Keshari Lab

Research

Kayvan R. Keshari, PhD

Fred Lebow Chair at MSK

Professor

The goal of our research program is to improve our biochemical understanding of cancer metabolism and use metabolic changes to develop non-invasive methods for diagnosis as well as approaches to treat cancer. Our work takes advantage of multi-modality methods at all scales, with a special focus in hyperpolarized magnetic resonance, allowing us the ability to bring these approaches to the clinic.

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Featured News

In the Lab

MSK Biochemist and bioengineer Dr. Kayvan Keshari

How Reprogrammed Immune Cells Can Use Fructose To Fight Cancer

Learn how engineering immune cells to metabolize fructose could supercharge them to fight cancer.

In the Lab

Fructose Could Play a Role in Targeting Leukemia

Leukemia cells metabolize fructose in a way that could make them easier to target with drugs.

Feature

New Imaging Technique Provides Snapshot of Brain Tumor Activity

A new imaging approach could shorten the time needed to determine whether a brain tumor treatment is working.

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Publications Highlights

Schild T, Wallisch P, Zhao Y, Wang YT, Haughton L, Chirayil R, Pierpont K, Chen K, Nunes-Violante S, Cross J, de Stanchina E, Thompson CB, Scheinberg DA, Perry JSA, Keshari KR. (2025) Metabolic engineering to facilitate anti-tumor immunity Cancer Cell. Mar 10;43(3):552-562.e9. doi: 10.1016/j.ccell.2025.02.004.

Patel S, Porcari P, Coffee E, Kim N, Berishaj M, Peyear T, Zhang G, Keshari KR. (2024) Simultaneous noninvasive quantification of redox and downstream glycolytic fluxes reveals compartmentalized brain metabolism. Science Advances Dec 20;10(51):eadr2058. doi: 10.1126/sciadv.adr2058.

Marin-Valencia I, Kocabas A, Rodriguez-Navas C, Miloushev VZ, González-Rodríguez M, Lees H, Henry KE, Vaynshteyn J, Longo V, Deh K, Eskandari R, Mamakhanyan A, Berishaj M, Keshari KR. (2024) Imaging brain glucose metabolism in vivo reveals propionate as a major anaplerotic substrate in pyruvate dehydrogenase deficiency Cell Metabolism Jun 4;36(6):1394-1410.e12. doi: 10.1016/j.cmet.2024.05.002

Keshari KR, Heller DA, Boltyanskiy R, Hricak H, Magaldi T, Overholtzer M. Engineering focusing on cancer. (2024) Cancer Cell Jul 8;42(7):1138-1141. doi: 10.1016/j.ccell.2024.04.013.

Pigliapochi R, Peyear T, Ruan T, Keshari KR. (2024) Hyperpolarized Nano-NMR Platform for Quantification of Mass Limited Samples. Analytical Chemistry. Jul 22:10.1021/acs.analchem.4c02378. doi: 10.1021/acs.analchem.4c02378

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People

Kayvan R. Keshari, PhD

Fred Lebow Chair at MSK

Professor

Biochemist and Bioengineer Kayvan Keshari explores changes in cancer metabolism to develop advanced imaging techniques and cancer therapeutics.
BA, University of California, Berkeley
PhD, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill

[email protected]: Email Address
View physician profile: Physician profile

Members

Marjan Berishaj

Senior Research Technician

Ross Boltyanskiy

Assistant Director- Imaging & Bioengineering Lead

Elizabeth Coffee

Instructor, Neuro-Oncology

John Consiglio

Engineering Specialist

Quinlan Cullen

Graduate Student

Grace Figlioli

Research Technician

Celia Martinez de la Torre

Research Scholar

Vesselin Miloushev

Assistant Attending

Saket Patel

Research Scholar

Thasin Peyear

Graduate Student

Roberta Pigliapochi

Senior Research Scientist

Aisha Pintor

Project Coordinator

Paola Porcari

Senior Research Scientist

Thomas Ruan

Graduate Student

Nancy Santiappillai

Research Fellow

Thomas Smoot

Research Technician

Briana Turner

Graduate Student

Guannan Zhang

Research Fellow

Skye Zhao

Graduate Student

H. Nikki Aldeborgh

Research Technician

Julio Alvarez

Research Technician

Yolanda Bryce

Assistant Attending

Giuseppe Carlucci

Research Scholar

Rachel Chirayil

Technician

Andrew Cho

Graduate Student

Kofi Deh

Research Fellow

Valentina Di Gialleonardo

Research Scholar

Lidia Dos Santos-Cunha

Research Fellow

Kristin Granlund

Research Associate

Simran Gupta

Research Technician

Lyric Haughton

Research Technician

Nathaniel Kim

Research Fellow

Hannah Lees

Research Fellow

Ana Mark

Project Coordinator

Alex Poot

Research Fellow

Lucia Salamanca-Cardona

Research Fellow

Tanya Schild

Research Fellow

Sui Seng Tee

Research Fellow

Steven Truong

Graduate Research Assistant

Achievements

2012 Pathway Independent Award
2012 Junior Fellow, International Society of Magnetic Resonance in Medicine
2019 NIH Rising Stars
2020 Distinguished Investigator, American Academy of Radiology and Biomedical Research
2024 Fellow, World Molecular Imaging Society

2025 Fellow, American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering

Lab News & Events

Upcoming event

Publishing in Nature Biomedical Engineering

Tuesday, January 13, 2026 - 4:00 PM to 5:00 PM

Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
Rockefeller Research Laboratories
430 East 67th Street
Room RRL-116
New York, NY 10065

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

Apply now

Get in Touch

[email protected]

Lab Head Email
@KeshariLab

Disclosures

Members of the MSK Community 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. These activities outside of MSK further our mission, provide productive collaborations, and promote the practical application of scientific discoveries.

MSK requires doctors, faculty members, and leaders 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. Not all disclosed interests and relationships present conflicts of interest. MSK reviews all disclosed interests and relationships to assess whether a conflict of interest exists and whether formal COI management is needed.

Kayvan R. Keshari discloses the following relationships and financial interests:

Atish Technologies, Inc.
Equity; Intellectual Property Rights
GE Healthcare
Professional Services and Activities
Imaginostics, Inc.
Equity

Mi2 Holdings LLC
Equity; Professional Services and Activities (Uncompensated)
NVision Imaging Technologies GmbH
Equity; Professional Services and Activities

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, 2024 through disclosure submission in spring 2025). This data reflects interests that may or may not still exist. This data is updated annually.

Learn more about MSK’s COI policies here. For questions regarding MSK’s COI-related policies and procedures, email MSK’s Compliance Office at [email protected].

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