Karuna Ganesh
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karunamdphd.bsky.social
Karuna Ganesh
@karunamdphd.bsky.social
Physician Scientist at Memorial Sloan Kettering | Metastasis | Plasticity | Colorectal Cancer | Regeneration | Stem Cells | Organoids | posts my own and do not represent MSK
Thank you to all their mentors in the Ganesh lab, committees/programs and beyond for your concerted support and guidance in helping our trainees succeed 🙏
July 8, 2025 at 7:48 AM
Congratulations Xiang (Molly), Masters student from @weillcornell.bsky.social - all the best for your PhD at Duke University Computational Bio!
July 8, 2025 at 7:44 AM
Congratulations Emilie @emiliedevet.bsky.social, Masters student from @erasmusmc.bsky.social - all the best for your PhD at Harvard/MIT HST @harvard.edu @mit.edu!
July 8, 2025 at 7:44 AM
Congratulations Aileen, Bridge Scholar @mskeducation.bsky.social - all the best for your PhD at Scripps/Oxford @scripps.edu @ox.ac.uk!
July 8, 2025 at 7:44 AM
Ahmed Mahmoud - our first PhD student, NSF GRFP and @hhmi.org Gilliam Fellow @weillcornell.bsky.social - thank you for trusting me to be your thesis advisor! A major milestone for the lab and check out his first preprint www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Paired primary-metastasis patient-derived organoids and mouse models identify phenotypic evolution and druggable dependencies of peritoneal metastasis from appendiceal cancer
Peritoneal carcinomatosis is a common yet deadly manifestation of gastrointestinal cancers, with few effective treatments. To identify targetable determinants of peritoneal metastasis, we focused on appendiceal adenocarcinoma (AC), a gastrointestinal cancer that metastasizes almost exclusively to the peritoneum. Current treatments are extrapolated from colorectal cancer (CRC), yet AC has distinct genomic alterations, mucinous morphology and peritoneum restricted metastatic pattern. Further, no stable preclinical models of AC exist, limiting drug discovery and representing an unmet clinical need. We establish a first-in-class stable biobank of 16 long-term cultured AC patient-derived organoids (PDOs), including 3 matched, simultaneously resected primary AC-peritoneal carcinomatosis (AC-PC) pairs. By enriching for cancer cells, AC PDOs enable accurate genomic characterization relative to paucicellular AC tissue. We establish an organoid orthotopic intraperitoneal xenograft model that recapitulates diffuse peritoneal carcinomatosis and show that PC-organoids retain increased metastatic capacity, decreased growth factor dependency and sensitivity to standard of care chemotherapy relative to matched primary AC organoids. Single cell profiling of AC-PC pairs reveals dedifferentiation from mucinous differentiated states in primary AC into intestinal stem cell and fetal progenitor states in AC-PC, with upregulation of oncogenic signaling pathways. Through hypothesis-driven drug testing, we identify KRASMULTI-ON inhibitor RMC-7977 and Wnt-targeting tyrosine kinase inhibitor WNTinib as novel, clinically actionable strategies to target AC-PC more effectively. ### Competing Interest Statement K.G. is listed as an inventor on US patent 11,464,874, and US provisional patent applications 63/478,809 and 63/478,829 on targeting L1CAM to treat cancer, submitted by MSKCC. J.S. is a consultant for Paige AI.
www.biorxiv.org
July 8, 2025 at 7:44 AM
Congratulations Luke!
March 8, 2025 at 7:11 PM
Thank you Mara! This work would not have been possible without bedrock NIH funding to MSKCC and to my lab through research and training grants, as well as the Dalton Family Foundation. This support enables us to work tirelessly to make progress against deadly cancers to benefit our patients.
February 24, 2025 at 1:08 PM
Thank you Trevor and Freddie for your thoughtful write up!
January 20, 2025 at 6:47 PM
Reposted by Karuna Ganesh
2/Discover how colorectal cancer evolves during metastasis. This study reveals metastases shifting from stem-like to fetal progenitor states, driving squamous & neuroendocrine traits linked to poor outcomes.

@karunamdphd.bsky.social @mskcancercenter.bsky.social

www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Progressive plasticity during colorectal cancer metastasis - Nature
Colorectal cancer metastasis involves dramatic plasticity and loss of PROX1-mediated repression of non-intestinal lineages.
www.nature.com
December 23, 2024 at 3:55 PM
Please add me
December 4, 2024 at 11:10 PM