Meet Dr. Ganesan
Dr. Shridar Ganesan came to Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey in 2005. His medical training began at Yale University, from where he graduated with both an MD and a PhD in cell biology. He then completed a medical residency at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston and served as a Chief Medical Resident. This was followed by a fellowship in medical oncology at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.
As a physician/scientist, Dr. Ganesan runs a basic science laboratory focused on cancer genomics and breast cancer biology and sees patients in the Stacy Goldstein Breast Cancer Center at Rutgers Cancer Institute. In the clinic, he works collaboratively with experts across multi-disciplines and has the opportunity to put theory into practice as we aim to develop the next generation of targeted treatments for breast cancer.
Ganesan Laboratory Research Overview
With a research interest in breast cancer biology and DNA repair, Dr. Ganesan is currently exploring how DNA repair defects in cancers can be exploited to develop novel effective treatments. He is also active in applying next-generation sequencing technology to identify specific genomic changes in cancers that can be therapeutically targeted.
DNA repair abnormalities in cancer
Defects in DNA repair are present in many cancers and likely play a fundamental role in tumorigenesis. Our laboratory investigates the role of DNA repair defects in cancer, with a focus on how disruption of BRCA1-dependent DNA repair pathways affects normal DNA repair choice, and leads to both genomic instability and epigenetic instability. Our overall aim is to characterize DNA repair defects in individual cancers and develop specific therapeutic strategies that exploit these defects.
Identifying genomic mechanisms of exceptional response and acquired resistance to targeted therapy
We apply current NGS sequencing methods to identify mechanisms of exceptional response to novel agents employed in clinical trials at Rutgers Cancer Institute as well as explore mechanisms of acquired resistance to targeted therapeutics. This is achieved through direct analysis of patient tissues and development of novel cancer models.
Identifying novel mechanisms of response and resistance to cancer immunotherapy
Ongoing DNA repair defects may also lead to tumor immunogenicity and vulnerability to immune checkpoint blockade. Through both laboratory and computational approaches, we are investigating potential mechanisms of response and resistance to immune checkpoint blockade.
Our laboratory uses cutting-edge methods in molecular and cell biology applied to cell and animal cancer models as well as analysis of primary human cancer specimens. We work closely with our colleagues in computational biology and clinical trials research in many of our projects.
