Karan Luthria

I am an MD-PhD student at Columbia University in the Izar Laboratory.

My research asks how cancers evolve, acquire metastatic potential, and interact with the cells and tissues around them. I develop computational models and multimodal approaches for studying melanoma, sarcoma, and metastatic disease, with an emphasis on questions that require connecting genomic, transcriptomic, spatial, and clinical observations.

This work is motivated by a practical challenge: patient tumors are complex and change over time, while any single measurement captures only part of that biology. My goal is to build and apply methods that make those measurements more interpretable and help generate testable hypotheses about progression and treatment response.

Before medical school, I studied computer science at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC). I was named to MLH’s Top 50 Hackers ↗ and received a Goldwater Scholarship for work using deep learning to improve drug-repurposing models.

Away from research, I play tennis, hike, and spend time in the mountains. I enjoy trying new restaurants and am a Yelp Elite reviewer, and I’m perfecting my chai-making process. I’m a Washington Wizards fan and make sure to watch each game (shoutout AJ Dybantsa); my fantasy football team, meanwhile, keeps losing each Sunday.