Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK) announced today that physician-scientist Karuna Ganesh, MD, PhD, has been awarded a Cancer Grand Challenges grant, a prestigious global initiative that provides up to $25 million around five years to tackle the toughest problems in cancer research. Dr. Ganesh is part of an international team focused on developing new ways to “rewire” cancer cells and prevent treatment resistance in colorectal cancer, one of the leading causes of cancer-related deaths worldwide, and with rates rising among adults under 50.
At MSK, Dr. Ganesh leads The Karuna Ganesh Lab, a laboratory focused on metastatic disease, which accounts for more than 90% of cancer deaths. Her team studies a particularly aggressive group of cancer cells that can survive treatment, adapt to new environments, and seed tumors in distant organs. The overall goal is to understand what gives these cells their ability to change, survive, and regrow, and then find ways to target those abilities.
“This grant enables us to expand our discoveries regarding how cancer cells continuously alter their behavior to evade treatment. Our goal is to develop strategies that can block this adaptability and ultimately defeat cancer,” said Dr. Ganesh. “We are honored by the opportunity to collaborate with an international team of experts to transform advanced colorectal cancer into a manageable disease.”
Cancer Grand Challenges is a global research initiative co-founded by Cancer Research UK and the National Cancer Institute in the US, that identifies the toughest challenges in cancer research and assembles teams to address them.
Dr. Ganesh’s team, one of five, has been named REWIRE-CAN and is led by Bart Vanhaesebroeck of University College London. The team includes scientists from 7 other institutions in the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands, with expertise in colorectal cancer, early-onset, therapeutic development, and more. Their challenge is to develop and apply novel ways to rewire cancer cells to their disadvantage.
In advanced cancers, drugs that target tumor growth pathways often stop working over time because cancer cells adapt and find new ways to survive. This resistance highlights the need for fundamentally different therapeutic approaches.
Team REWIRE-CAN aims to transform therapeutic approaches and patient outcomes in colorectal cancer by developing precise signaling modulators to reprogram cancer cells into vulnerable states, disrupting their finely tuned ‘Goldilocks’ state.
“We are thrilled for Dr. Ganesh on receiving this prestigious grant,” said Dr. Ross Levine, MD, Chief Scientific Officer at Memorial Sloan Kettering. “As stewards of scientific advancement, we recognize not only the intellectual rigor of her research, but also its potential to elevate standards across the field and deliver meaningful impact. It is also inspiring to see our researchers across MSK working to illuminate the mysteries of metastasis and identify opportunities to slow or even stop its relentless march.”
The REWIRE-CAN team is funded by Cancer Research UK, the National Cancer Institute, the Bowelbabe Fund for Cancer Research UK and Yosemite (oncology-focused venture firm) through Cancer Grand Challenges.
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Carolina Takacs
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