Ganesh Subramanyam Palapattu, MD

Ganesh S. Palapattu, MD, FACS is The George F. and Sandy G. Valassis Professor and Chair of the Department of Urology. He joined the University of Michigan Department of Urology as Associate Professor and Chief of Urologic Oncology in the Fall of 2012. Prior to this he was the Chief of Urologic Oncology at Houston Methodist Hospital in Houston, Texas. Dr. Palapattu has held faculty appointments at the University of Rochester School of Medicine in Rochester, NY where he was also Assistant Residency Program Director and Weill Cornell Medical College/The Houston Methodist Hospital.

Dr. Palapattu was born in Toronto, Canada where he developed a passion for street hockey. At the age of 9, his family moved to Houston, Texas where he picked up playing the French horn. Dr. Palapattu graduated from the University of Texas at Austin with a B.A. degree in the Humanities and subsequently attended Baylor College of Medicine. Dr. Palapattu received his surgical/urological training at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and further specialty training in urologic oncology at Johns Hopkins. He and his wife, Anu, whom he met at UT Austin, have 2 young children. The Palapattu family is enthusiastic about taking advantage of the many outdoor activities the Ann Arbor area affords.

When not working, Dr. Palapattu enjoys spending time with his family, traveling and playing/watching sports. Go Blue!

Prostate cancer- high risk prostate cancer, robotic prostatectomy, nerve-sparing surgical techniques; Kidney cancer- open and minimally invasive surgical (i.e., laparoscopic and robotic) approaches.

University of Michigan Health participates with most health insurance plans.

As a surgeon-scientist, Dr. Palapattu maintains equal footing in the lab and clinic. The long term goal of his research program is to improve the outcomes of men with prostate cancer. Dr. Palapattu’s research seeks to shed new light on human prostate cancer stem cells, the prostate tumor microenvironment, mechanisms of prostate cancer progression, the biologic basis of prostate cancer health disparity, prostate cancer metabolism and improved methods of intra-operative prostate cancer and cavernous nerve imaging to aid surgical resection. His laboratory work has received funding from the National Cancer Institute (NCI), the Department of Defense, the Prostate Cancer Foundation and the New York Academy of Sciences, among others.