Mount Sinai is firing up discovery and creating solutions

REDEFINING INNOVATION

T h e M a g a z i n e o f T h e M o u n T S i n a i M e d i c a l c e n T e r

Mount SinaiSCiEnCE & MEDiCinE

in this issue Breaking new Frontiers + Revolution in education + Data’s human side + team Players + how to innovate + Genomics to the Bedside FALL 2013

Please contact us by telephone (212.659.8500) or email (philanthropy@mountsinai.org) if you wish to have your name removed from our distribution list for fundraising materials.

President and Chief exeCutive OffiCer,

the MOunt sinai MediCal Center

Kenneth L. Davis, MD

anne and JOel ehrenkranz dean,

iCahn sChOOl Of MediCine at MOunt sinai

exeCutive viCe President fOr aCadeMiC

affairs, the MOunt sinai MediCal Center

Dennis S. Charney, MD

President, the MOunt sinai hOsPital

David L. Reich, MD

seniOr viCe President, develOPMent,

the MOunt sinai MediCal Center

Mark Kostegan, FAHP

editOr

Celia M. Regan

assOCiate editOr

Travis Adkins

assistant editOr

Vanesa Sarić

COntributOrs

Philip BerrollSara DanielsDon HamermanAndrew LichtensteinEdward McGowanRhianna MorrisBarbara J. NissSima RabinowitzKatie Quackenbush Spiegel Radio Co. Illustration

design

Taylor Design

Mount Sinai Science & Medicine is published twice annually by the Office of Development, The Mount Sinai Medical Center, for an audience of friends and alumni. We welcome your comments; please contact us at amagazine@mountsinai.org or call us at (212) 659-8500. Visit us on the Web at philanthropy.mountsinai.org

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In •no •va •tionInnovation—define it, and everything it connotes seems to disappear;

it loses the innate power of its meaning and becomes just a word, like

any other. But examine what it really means, the creativity it prompts,

the dialogue it inspires, and you can come closer to capturing its essence.

So for this issue of Mount Sinai Science & Medicine, we are examining

the concept through actions.

From research labs, to hospital administrative offices; from first-year

classrooms, to the work of a singular business pro; from the white boards

and dry-erase markers of the Leon and Norma Hess Center for Science

and Medicine, to its massive data servers: Mount Sinai’s commitment to

fostering innovation is all-encompassing. No area of the medical center

is untouched by the power of creative thinking and new concepts.

We present you here with the ideas and solutions of the people whose

work serves as the best definition there can be for a word that deserves

nothing less than our best thinking.

ABOUT THE COVERSInnovation is high tech—and low.

On the front cover: Your brain at work. Photographic rendering of a synapse firing. Created by Spectral-Design.

On the back cover: the hess Center's white and green boards are designed to inspire everything, from scribbles to complex ideas. Photography by Don Hamerman and Andrew Lichtenstein.

Volume IV, number 1

Mount SinaiSCiEnCE & MEDiCinE

MESSAgE02 innovation is in Mount sinai’s history—and at the heart of everything we do

NEwS03 Mount sinai and Continuum to combine + school of Medicine named for Carl

icahn + new grads urged to bring passion to innovation + hospital boasts first designated comprehensive stroke center + Campaign surges toward record finish + new logo for Mount sinai + sinai innovations, part two + founding school of Medicine charter turns 50 + dr. fuster = dr. ruster + aspen, usta partnerships offer new forums + rensselaer collaboration creates new opportunities + news in brief

FACUlTy10 from alia-klein to Wasserman: spotlight on 37 new recruits + nearly 200 faculty

receive honors and recognition + researchers investigate cell reprogramming, mitigating depression, flu’s internal clock, bypass surgery for diabetics, genomic sequencing and e. coli, hospice’s benefits, therapy for fibrotic diseases, halting myelofibrosis, and ketamine’s effect on treatment-resistant depression

giViNg46 Campaign gifts transforming Mount sinai + the tisches to be honored at

October Campaign Celebration event + Philanthropy reaches far and wide + Celebrating the hess Center opening, the dubin breast Center, the Cohen Center for labor and birth, the friedman brain institute, Children’s health, greening our Children, the Crystal Party, Mount sinai in Palm beach, and Meet the directors + Philanthropy at Work: the Mindiches explore children’s health with dr. gelb

AlUMNi 53 legacy: the galson family + dr. Paul Cunningham + Jacobi honorees + Welcoming

new alumni director + valedictory from dr. Jeffrey laitman + reunion 2013

FEATURESRedefining Innovation

16 the Pathway to innovation think like an innovator, in three easy steps.

18 the searchers 17 innovators who are breaking new frontiers.

26 the icahn lift Carl icahn brings an activist approach to investing

and philanthropy.

29 revolutionizing Medical education Our students are being admitted and taught to innovate—innovatively.

34 surprise! Jeff hammerbacher finds the human side of data.

36 team Play drs. david reich, Mark Callahan, and annetine gelijns

make innovation possible.

39 dialogue drs. bottinger, Cordon-Cardo, and kazarskis bring

big data to the bedside.

42 new voices Mount sinai’s graduate students give voice to the

fresh future of biomedicine.

42

LEXICONThroughout the feature section, we define the buzzwords.

01

CO

NTE

NTS

In the fulfillment of our mission, we have always encouraged brilliant research and the development of its fruits: These are the critical components of innovative thinking—the thinking that led to some of Mount Sinai’s most important discoveries.

But while innovation has been a constant in our history, it is now becoming central to

our core values: We are putting our full energy into the creation of the next generation of

diagnostics, therapeutics, and devices that will save lives and eradicate disease. To do this,

we are fostering a culture of innovation and transformation, where anything is possible;

our students and faculty must believe that they can change the future of biomedicine,

science, and clinical medicine. We are investing in technology, a new Center for Innovation,

Technology and Entrepreneurship, a host of extraordinary new courses, and significant

new faculty recruitments, including an array of professionals with expertise in venture

capital and big data analytics.

Such a culture is essential to brilliance and success. Our model is Silicon Valley, where

charting new directions and alternate paths is almost a way of life. Yet, for the most part,

the biomedical universe—including most of the great academic medical centers in this

country—does not emulate that model.

But we are emulating it—and refining it, beginning by linking disciplines not ordinarily

linked. For example, we have made recruitments in mathematics who are helping to forge

and solidify connections that seemed unthinkable before we acquired our super computer,

Minerva. Adding their expertise to our faculty—and giving them an astonishingly powerful

tool like Minerva—allows them to produce algorithms that we know will transform our

work: They are already working with our electronic medical records system, analyzing

genomic data, and beginning to develop predictive models of disease, as well as identifying

patients at highest risk for relapse and readmission; this, in turn, will help us to improve

the ways we diagnose and treat patients, and also help to control the costs of health care.

An innovative culture like ours builds an institute for genomics whose director thinks

differently about how genes interact, applying new predictive models to tens of thousands

of genes and proteins to determine the real causes of disease. And an innovative culture

extends to its students. By reshaping our admissions process for the MD program, we

are expanding the creative range of the student body and encouraging different kinds of

candidates to come here, work together, and think innovatively from day one.

Even more crucially, an innovative culture takes risks. This is especially important

for a health care institution, where failure has serious consequences, because taking no

risks—maintaining the status quo—guarantees three things: Chronic diseases will not

be conquered, quality of life will not be improved, and life spans will not be extended.

Passivity is not an alternative to fear of failure; what matters is how we walk the adven-

turous path. We must recognize that safety must be paramount when we work with

patients, but before we get there, we must look at problems in unique ways—and that

means trying things that could fail.

Great findings come from unexpected places, and Mount Sinai’s culture of innovation

means that, in every classroom, in every lab, in every clinical space, the opportunity to

change medicine is everyone’s priority.

Kenneth L. Davis, MD Dennis S. Charney, MDPresident and CEO, Anne and Joel Ehrenkranz Dean,The Mount Sinai Medical Center Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs, The Mount Sinai Medical Center

While innovation has been a constant in our history, it is now becoming central to our core values.

Message from the President the dean&

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MESSAGEMg

The Mount Sinai Medical Center and Continuum

Health Partners announced that they will combine

to form The Mount Sinai Health System, the largest

private network in New York City and one of the

largest nonprofit systems in the country, comprising

seven hospitals and 3,300 beds.

“Our goal in combining to form an integrated

health care system and academic medical center is to

provide exceptional medical care to New Yorkers,” said

Kenneth L. Davis, MD, President and Chief Executive

Officer of The Mount Sinai Medical Center, who will

serve as President and Chief Executive Officer of The

Mount Sinai Health System. “The combination will

create increased efficiencies and expand access to

advanced primary and specialty care throughout this

citywide system.”

The Mount Sinai Health System will include Beth

Israel Medical Center in Manhattan, Beth Israel

Brooklyn, The Mount Sinai Hospital, Mount Sinai

Queens, New York Eye & Ear Infirmary, St. Luke’s

Hospital, and Roosevelt Hospital. The complementary

strengths of the two partners, which together offer

a comprehensive array of primary and specialty care

programs, will position the new system to success-

fully navigate the changing health care landscape,

said Peter W. May, Chairman of The Mount Sinai

Medical Center Boards of Trustees.

“I am confident that our leaders are working well

together to create an exceptional health system that

will serve as a model for the entire country,” said Mr.

May, who will remain as Chairman of the Boards of

Trustees for the new system.

“Bringing together the clinical and administrative

excellence of Mount Sinai and Continuum will help

provide us a position of significant strength and

resourcefulness,” said Steven Hochberg, the Chairman

of the Boards of Trustees for Continuum, who will

serve as Vice Chairman.

“This combination makes readily available a more

robust and multidisciplinary network of services that

neither institution could have offered independently,”

said Stanley Brezenoff, President and Chief Executive

Officer of Continuum. Following the completion

of the merger, Mr. Brezenoff will retire from his

current role and serve in an advisory capacity to the

leadership during the transition process.

Physicians and scientists affiliated with Continuum

hospitals will assume academic appointments at the

Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. All affili-

ations that Continuum currently has with other

medical schools will be transitioned to Mount Sinai,

which will be the sole medical school for the System.

Dennis S. Charney, MD, Anne and Joel Ehrenkranz

Dean of Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and

Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs of The

Mount Sinai Medical Center, sees the opportunity for

increased research collaboration.

“We will build on Mount Sinai’s legacy of ground-

breaking clinical and translational research that has

led to improved methods of diagnosing and treating

human disease,” said Dr. Charney. “With this combi-

nation, we will widen our research base and accelerate

the pace of breakthrough treatments and protocols.

The combination will also provide for an outstanding

and diverse educational experience for our medical

students, residents, and fellows.”

The combination is expected to receive final

regulatory approval before the end of the year.

“�Our�leaders�are�working�well�together�to�create�an�exceptional�health�system�that�will�serve�as�a�model�for�the�entire�country.”

–���Peter�W.�May,�Chairman,��Mount�Sinai�Boards�of�Trustees

Mount Sinai, Continuum to Combine

Kenneth L. Davis and Peter W. May; Steven Hochberg

03

NEWSNw

Mount Sinai Renames Medical School in Honor of Trustee Carl C. Icahn

Mount Sinai has renamed its medical school

the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in

honor of Trustee Carl C. Icahn, whose November

2012 gift—the largest in the institution’s history

and one of the biggest ever given to a medical

school—brings his total lifetime giving to Mount

Sinai to more than $200 million.

“Carl’s support enables our scientists and

clinicians to continue pursuing groundbreaking

discoveries. We are honored to bear the Icahn

School of Medicine name as we revolutionize

health care for Mount Sinai patients and for

patients around the world,” said President

Kenneth L. Davis, MD.

Mr. Icahn’s latest gift significantly expands

Mount Sinai’s research capacity by increasing

the budget of the President’s Strategic Initiative

Fund, which is used to advance promising

research projects, recruit world-renowned

faculty, and provide critical support for other

strategic priorities. In addition to the new name

for the medical school, Mount Sinai renamed

its burgeoning genomics program the Icahn

Institute for Genomics and Multiscale Biology in

light of Mr. Icahn’s longstanding interest in the

field and of the pivotal role the Institute

will play in accelerating groundbreaking

research across disciplines. Mount Sinai will

also designate several of its most outstanding

scientists across several institutes and

departments as Icahn Scholars.

“Carl Icahn’s generosity has tremendously

strengthened Mount Sinai’s capacity for

innovation by allowing us flexibility and oppor-

tunistic creativity, two of the greatest assets for

any innovative organization,” said Anne and

Joel Ehrenkranz Dean Dennis Charney, MD.

“We are extremely grateful to Carl not only for

his philanthropic support but also for his trust

and confidence in Mount Sinai and the major

role our institution will continue to play in

transforming global health care.”

Mr. Icahn’s gift ranks among the ten largest

ever given to a medical school and among the

20 largest given to an American university or

college, according to The Chronicle of Higher

Education.

“Carl Icahn has been a remarkable supporter

of the capital campaign, and as a philanthropist,

he is a game-changer for Mount Sinai,” said

Chairman Peter May. “His gift helped us to

surpass our original $1 billion goal and gave us

the momentum to reach the challenge goal of

$1.3 billion.”

“Mount Sinai clinicians and researchers

are performing some of the most exciting,

important work in medical science today—work

that has the potential to dramatically improve

and extend human life,” said Mr. Icahn. “I am

confident that my support will help them shape

the future of medicine.”

“�Mount�Sinai�is�poised�to�make�enormous�breakthroughs�in�biomedical�science,�and�Carl’s�extraordinarily�generous�gift��will�help�us�fulfill�that�promise.”

–���President�and�CEO�� �Kenneth�L.�Davis,�MD

Carl Icahn and Kenneth L. Davis in May 2013.

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Innovation, Collaboration, Graduation Highlights from 44th Commencement

Held May 10 at Avery Fisher Hall, Mount Sinai’s 44th Commencement saw 307 degrees

granted to Icahn School of Medicine students and students in the Graduate School of

Biomedical Sciences, including 142 MDs, 63 PhDs, and 98 Masters degrees. Nobel Prize-

winning psychologist Daniel Kahneman, PhD addressed the Mount Sinai graduates

as commencement speaker and received an honorary Doctor of Science degree. Other

honorary degree recipients were Aaron Ciechanover, MD, DSc (Doctor of Science),

a Nobel Prize-winning biochemist who has made monumental contributions to the

understanding of crucial biochemical processes; Eva Andersson-Dubin, MD (Doctor of

Humane Letters) and Glenn Dubin (Doctor of Humane Letters), philanthropic leaders

who helped found Mount Sinai’s Dubin Breast Center; and Mortimer B. Zuckerman

(Doctor of Humane Letters), one of the most influential voices in print news media in

the last 20 years and a generous supporter of medical research.

“Wemustpossesstheintellectualcouragetochallengetraditionanddogma,theimaginationtoachievetrueinnovation,andthepassiontodeliveronourpromiseoftransfor-mativediscovery.”

–�Dean�Dennis�S.�Charney,�MD

HospitalisFirstinNYStatetoBeDesignatedComprehensiveStrokeCenterMount Sinai is the first hospital in New York State—and among the few nationwide—to be designated a Comprehensive Stroke Center by the Joint Commission, the nation’s oldest and largest standards-setting and accrediting body in health care. The designation is awarded only to medical centers that meet rigorous requirements in advanced imaging capabilities, round-the-clock avail-ability of specialized treatments, staff with the unique education and competencies to care for complex stroke patients, and other key criteria.

“Mount Sinai has been steadfastly committed to educating our commu-nity about stroke risk, signs, and symptoms,” said Stanley Tuhrim, MD, Director of the Mount Sinai Stroke Center and Professor and Clinical Vice Chair of Neurology (at left, above). “We are honored that the Joint Commission has recognized us for our dedication to research and the care of our patients.”

“Doctorsalonecannothelppatientspreventormanagechronicconditions,butasophisticated,dedicatedcareteam,whereallareworkingtothemaximumoftheirlicense,canhelpensuresuchchange.”

–�President�and�CEO�Kenneth�L.�Davis,�MD

“Youneedthecouragetoactonyourintuitionwhenyoutrustit,thedisci-plinetofollowtherulesandskillsyouhaveacquiredwhenit’sthebestyoucando,andthewisdomtoknowwhentouseoneortheother.”

� –�Daniel�Kahneman,�PhD

05

Months before its scheduled end in December 2013,

the Campaign for Mount Sinai has surpassed its new

challenge goal of $1.3 billion, which was set by the

Boards of Trustees after the original $1 billion goal was

reached in October 2012—more than one year ahead

of schedule. The Campaign stands at $1.36 billion as of

press time; the new total was powered by five recent

transformational gifts:

• A $5 million gift from philanthropic leaders Leonard

and Emily Blavatnik that will support a variety

of initiatives at the Recanati/Miller Transplant

Institute, as well as the Ovarian Cancer Translational

Research Program and a renovation project to create

a floor in the hospital devoted to caring for women

with breast or reproductive system cancers.

• A $12 million gift from Trustee David S. “Sandy”

Gottesman and Ruth Gottesman, EdD, supporting

the recently completed renovation of the pediatric

intensive care unit, in recognition of which the

medical center has named The Alice Gottesman

Bayer Pediatric Intensive Care Unit.

• A $25 million commitment from Trustee Henry R.

Kravis and Marie-Josée Kravis to advance the work

of the clinicians and researchers housed in the

Center for Advanced Medicine, home to many of

Mount Sinai’s programs in primary care, preventive

medicine, community health, and global health, and

which will be renamed the Marie-Josée and Henry R.

Kravis Center for Advanced Medicine.

• A leadership gift from Trustee Eric S. Mindich and

Stacey Mindich, bringing their lifetime giving to $15

million, to accelerate translational research in science

and medicine for infants, children, and adolescents

at The Mindich Child Health and Development

Institute.

• A $15 million gift from the estate of Ruth Ward

Coleman, a longtime Mount Sinai supporter who will

be recognized for her generosity with the creation of

several Ward-Coleman Chairs, to be held by some of

Mount Sinai’s leading physician-scientists.

(For more about some of these gifts, see page 46.)

“The impressive accomplishments of the Campaign are

a testament to the leadership of Ken Davis and Dennis

Charney, who defined a strong, essential course for the

Medical Center, one that sparked support from the

Boards of Trustees at record levels,” noted Peter May,

Chairman of the Mount Sinai Boards of Trustees. “Well

over half our total to date was given by Trustees—a

rare accomplishment for any academic medical center.”

“The capital campaign has exceeded our expectations

in every way and has given us a deeper appreciation of

Campaign Surges Toward Finish Line with Transformational Gifts

1.36 BILLION

CAMPAIGNTOTALAS�OF�PRESS�TIME

$

“�The�phenomenal�success�of�this�effort,�begun�just�before�the�recession�of�2008,�is�an�example�of�how�Mount�Sinai�brings�out�the�best�in�all�of�us.�The�impact�of�this�campaign�will�be�felt�for�generations.”

–����James�S.�Tisch,�Chairman,�Campaign�for�Mount�Sinai

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FiveDecadesofExcellenceMount�Sinai�Celebrates�50th�Anniversary�of�School�Charter

On June 28, 1963, the Board of Regents of New York State approved the charter of what was then known as the Mount Sinai Hospital School of Medicine, marking the first time since 1910 that a hospital in the U.S. had been granted permission to found a medical school. That watershed moment continues to reverberate today, as the Icahn School of Medicine carries on the legacy of breaking barriers and blazing new paths. “We are proud of what we have accomplished in the past fifty years, and excited about what the future holds,” said Dean Dennis S. Charney.

MountSinaiIntroducesNewLogoA new logo reflecting Mount Sinai’s mission of cross-disciplinary collabo-ration and capturing the momentum behind the institution’s continuing growth was unveiled at the December 13, 2012 public opening of the Leon and Norma Hess Center for Science & Medicine. The new logo—intersecting

lines that suggest both the historical Mount Sinai itself and the letter M and symbolize the connection among physicians, scientists, patients, and other members of the Mount Sinai community—is the centerpiece of a larger branding campaign that focuses on Mount Sinai’s excep-tional care and research.

All-StarSpeakerstoDiscuss“TeamScience”atSecondSINAInnovationsConferenceA roster of speakers including leaders from the arts, military, business, and sports

worlds will take the field at this year’s SINAInnovations conference to discuss how

physicians and researchers can apply the secrets of successful teamwork to discover

breakthroughs. To be held November 18 -19, the conference highlights how new

technologies and concepts in biomedical science increasingly require teamwork to

achieve success, said Scott L. Friedman, MD, Fishberg Professor of Medicine and Dean

for Therapeutic Discoveries, who is one of the event’s organizers. “Effective teamwork

to foster groundbreaking science is a major element of our efforts to transform the

culture at Mount Sinai,” said Dr. Friedman, who noted that the 2012 SINAInnovations

conference drew more than 600 attendees to hear from innovative thinkers such as

Ivan Seiderberg, the former CEO of Verizon Communications; Paul Stoffels, MD, Chief

Scientific Officer and Worldwide Chairman for Pharmaceuticals at Johnson & Johnson;

and David Zaslav, President and CEO of Discovery Communications.

For more information, visit www.mssm.edu/sinainnovations.

just how generous our philanthropic partners

are,” said President Kenneth L. Davis, MD,

noting that the vast majority of the Campaign’s

fundraising total comes from 52 gifts of $5 million

and above and 132 gifts of between $1 million

and $5 million.

Launched in 2007, the Campaign has

strengthened Mount Sinai’s position as one of

the foremost academic medical centers in the

country through its support for the creation of 14

innovative translational research institutes, the

construction of new, state-of-the-art research and

clinical care facilities, the recruitment of more

than 200 leading physician-scientists, and the

naming of the Icahn School of Medicine at

Mount Sinai.

Trustee James S. Tisch, who chairs the

Campaign, said, “The phenomenal success of this

effort, begun just before the recession of 2008, is

an example of how Mount Sinai brings out the

best in all of us. The impact of this campaign will

be felt for generations.”

“Our donors have enabled us to increase Mount

Sinai’s research footprint by thirty percent and

put us in a position to draw more than $350

million in NIH funding over the next five years,”

said Dean Dennis S. Charney. “But this campaign

has always been about transforming the future

of biomedicine. The ultimate measure of its

success will be the discoveries we make at Mount

Sinai that advance the diagnosis, prevention, and

treatment of human disease.”

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Valentín Fuster, MD, PhD, Physician-in-Chief and Director of Mount Sinai Heart, has already been recognized by every major award in cardiology, but now he has one more illustrious title to add to his crowded CV: Muppet. Dr. Fuster is the inspiration for “Dr. Valentín Ruster,” a character on “Barrio Sesamo: Monstruos Supersanos”—the version of the “Sesame Street” children’s program shown in his native Spain—who teaches kids about leading healthier lifestyles through exercise and a better diet.

New Forums for Mount Sinai’s Best IdeasCommitted to play a leading role in advocacy and education,

Mount Sinai is presenting some of its most prominent minds

in new settings and partnerships. President Davis was among a

group of national figures invited to discuss the future of health

care during the 2013 Aspen Ideas Festival, a celebrated forum

for thinkers and leaders from around the world. Dr. Davis and

other doctors gave Mount Sinai a strong presence at the Festival,

providing insights into genetic sequencing and containing medical

costs. Other recent partnerships with Rensselaer Polytechnic

Institute (see page 9), the United States Tennis Association (USTA),

and The Atlantic magazine have strengthened the Medical Center’s

position as a significant contributor to the national debate in terms

of education, research, and patient care. An upcoming Big Data

conference in collaboration with The Atlantic will highlight Mount

Sinai’s pioneering position in leveraging supercomputers, complex

algorithms, and new information-collection techniques to treat

patients more precisely. As the official provider of medical services

for the United States Tennis Association, Mount Sinai will deliver

on-site clinical care for tennis players competing in the US Open,

work with the USTA to develop injury prevention policies, and

conduct co-branded educational outreach to promote the health

benefits of tennis. For more about the Aspen Ideas Festival,

and to view videos of Mount Sinai’s presentations there, visit

http://blog.mountsinai.org/blog/aspen-ideas-festival.

Dr.Fuster,MeetDr.Ruster

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NewAdmissionsCriteriaIsaFirstforU.S.MedicalSchools

The Icahn School of Medicine announced that under its new FlexMed policy, which begins in 2013, half of the positions in each entering class will be offered to college sophomores with any undergraduate major, with no MCAT required. The School of Medicine is the first in the country to adopt such an admis-sions policy. (See page 30 for more about FlexMed.)

ThreeAppointedtoLeadershipPosts

Mount Sinai recently appointed three acclaimed physicians to key leadership posts. David L. Reich, MD has been named President of The Mount Sinai Hospital, leading operations for the 1,171-bed hospital. Arthur Klein, MD has been named President of The Mount Sinai Health Network, overseeing the network of satellite practices, affiliations, and Mount Sinai-owned practices throughout the greater New York City area. Jeremy Boal, MD has been named Chief Medical Officer, directing the Hospital’s efforts in patient safety, quality of care, and other critical areas.

BoardsofTrusteesElectsFiveNewMembers

The Boards of Trustees has elected Gerald J. Cardinale, Gail Golden Icahn, Howard Marks, Kenneth B. Mehlman, and Neil S. Mitchell to serve for three-year-terms. “I look forward to working closely with our new Trustees, each of whom has a distinguished history of philanthropic leadership at Mount Sinai and other institutions,” said Peter W. May, Chairman of the Boards of Trustees.

AndrewFyfeStewart,MDNamedDirectorofDiabetes,MetabolismandObesityInstitute

Andrew Fyfe Stewart, MD, a foremost expert in the replication and regeneration of the insulin-producing pancreatic beta cells that are destroyed by type 1 and type 2 diabetes, has joined Mount Sinai as Director of the Diabetes, Metabolism, and Obesity Institute. “Mount Sinai is on the leading edge of big biology,” said Dr. Stewart, who was previously at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. “My team is thrilled to round out Mount Sinai’s existing diabetes research with our expertise in beta cells.”

NEWSINBRIEFIcahn School of Medicine Forges Partnership with Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

The Icahn School of Medicine will combine its leadership in biomedical

research and patient care with Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute’s

expertise in engineering and invention prototyping through an

agreement that calls for the two institutions to collaborate on educa-

tional programs, research, and the development of new diagnostic

tools and treatments.

Announced May 22, the far-reaching partnership will include

developing complementary research programs and pursuing joint

funding; launching the Mount Sinai and Rensselaer Collaborative

Center for Research Innovation and Entrepreneurship, which will focus

on transitioning basic research into innovative startup projects; and

offering unique educational opportunities such as a program in which

students can earn an MD from Mount Sinai and a PhD from Rensselaer.

Initially, key areas of collaboration will be in genomics, imaging, tissue

engineering, and neuroscience.

“With high competition for funding and with the pharmaceutical

industry investing less in research and development, institutions with

complementary strengths must partner to revolutionize biomedical

research,” said Dean Dennis S. Charney, MD. “With both institutions

committed to a culture of innovation in research and education, we look

forward to working with Rensselaer to help provide the blueprint for 21st

century science and health care delivery.”

Shirley Ann Jackson, PhD, President of Rensselaer

Polytechnic Institute, and Dean Dennis S. Charney,

MD, at the signing in May.

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Nelly Alia-Klein, PhD, Associate Professor, Departments of Neuroscience and Psychiatry and member, The Friedman Brain Institute; previously at Brookhaven National Laboratory.

Nina Bhardwaj, MD, PhD, Director of the Immunotherapy Program and member, The Tisch Cancer Institute; previously at New York University Langone Medical Center.

Ira Blaufarb, MD, Associate Professor of Cardiology, Department of Medicine; previously in private practice; also affiliated with Lenox Hill Hospital.

Andrew Casden, MD, Associate Professor of Spinal Surgery, Leni and Peter W. May Department of Orthopaedics; previously at Beth Israel Medical Center.

Julide T. Celebi, MD, Professor and Vice Chair, Department of Dermatology, Professor, Department of Pathology and member, The Tisch Cancer Institute; previously at Columbia University Medical Center.

Farooq A. Chaudhry, MD, Professor of Cardiology, Department of Medicine, Director, Echocardiography Laboratories, and Associate Director, Mount Sinai Heart Network; previously at St. Luke’s Hospital.

Jean-Frederic Colombel, MD, Professor of Gastroenterology, Department of Medicine; previously at University Hospital of Lille, France.

Veronica Delaney, MD, PhD, Professor of Nephrology, Department of Medicine; previously in private practice.

Pallavi Devchand, PhD, Associate Professor, Department of Genetics and Genomic Sciences and member, the Icahn Institute for Genomics and Multiscale Biology; previously at Harvard Medical School.

Larry Di Fabrizio, MD, Associate Professor of Pulmonary, Critical Care, and Sleep Medicine, Department of Medicine, Director of the Pulmonary Faculty Practice; previously at Lenox Hill Hospital.

Nicholas DuBois, MD, Associate Professor, of Cardiology, Department of Medicine; also affiliated with Lenox Hill Hospital.

Mary E. Fowkes, MD, PhD, Associate Professor, Department of Pathology; previously at Norton Healthcare.

Adolfo García Ocaña, PhD, Professor of Endocrinology, Diabetes, and Bone Disease, Department of Medicine and member, The Mindich Child Health and Development Institute; previously at University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine.

Sacha Gnjatic, PhD, Associate Professor of Medicine, Hematology, and Medical Oncology, Department of Medicine and member, The Tisch Cancer Institute; previously at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.

Rita Goldstein, PhD, Professor, Department of Psychiatry/Department of Neuroscience and member, The Friedman Brain Institute; previously at Brookhaven National Laboratory.

Jorge E. Gomez, MD, Associate Professor of Medicine, Hematology, and Medical Oncology, Department of Medicine, Director of the Thoracic

Oncology Program, and member, The Tisch Cancer Institute; previously at University of Miami and Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.

Dorothy Grice, MD, Professor, Department of Psychiatry and member, The Friedman Brain Institute; previously at Columbia University Medical Center/New York State Psychiatric Institute.

Fatemeh Haghighi, PhD, Associate Professor, Departments of Neuroscience and Psychiatry and member, The Friedman Brain Institute; previously at Columbia University/New York State Psychiatric Institute.

Ching He, MD, Associate Professor, Department of Genetics and Genomic Sciences and member, the Icahn Institute for Genomics and Multiscale Biology; previously at Amgen.

Donna A. Ingram, MD, Associate Professor of Cardiology, Department of Medicine; previously in private practice; also affiliated with Lenox Hill Hospital.

Stuart B. Kahn, MD, Associate Professor, Leni and Peter W. May Department of Orthopaedics and Department of Rehabilitation Medicine; previously at Beth Israel Medical Center.

Paul Kuflik, MD, Associate Professor, Leni and Peter W. May Department of Orthopaedics; previously at Beth Israel Medical Center.

Francesco Leanza, MD, Associate Professor, Department of Family Medicine and Community Health and Director, Harlem Residency in Family Medicine; also affiliated with the Institute for Family Health.

The Mount Sinai Medical Center welcomes the following new recruits.

New ReCRUITS

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Sabina Lim, MD, Associate Professor and Vice Chair for Clinical Affairs, Department of Psychiatry and member, The Friedman Brain Institute; previously at Yale-New Haven Psychiatric Hospital.

Joseph Lurio, MD, Director of the Immunotherapy Program and member, The Tisch Cancer Institute; previously at New York University Langone Medical Center.

Michael G. Neuwirth, MD, Professor, Leni and Peter W. May Department of Orthopaedics; previously at Beth Israel Medical Center.

Ellen M. Olson, MD, Associate Professor, Brookdale Department of Geriatrics and Palliative Medicine; previously at the James J. Peters VA Medical Center.

Samir M. Parekh, BBS, Assistant Professor of Medicine, Hematology, and Medical Oncology, Departments of Medicine and Oncological Science; previously at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine.

Ramon Parsons, MD, PhD, Professor and Chair, Department of Oncological Sciences and member, The Tisch Cancer Institute; previously at Columbia University Medical Center.

Linda Prine, MD, Associate Professor, Department of Family Medicine and Community Health; also affiliated with the Institute for Family Health.

Avraham Reichenberg, PhD, Professor, Department of Psychiatry and member, The Friedman Brain Institute; previously at King’s College, London.

Robert Schiller, MD, Associate Professor, Department of Family Medicine and Community Health; also affiliated with the Institute for Family Health.

Donald Scott, PhD, Professor of Medicine, Endocrinology, Diabetes, and Bone Disease, Department of Medicine and member, the Diabetes, Obesity and Metabolism Institute; previously at University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine.

Amy Tiersten, MD, Associate Professor of Medicine, Hematology, and Medical Oncology, Department of Medicine; previously at New York University Langone Medical Center.

Rupangi Vasavada, PhD, Professor of Medicine, Endocrinology, Diabetes, and Bone Disease, Department of Medicine and member, Diabetes, Obesity and Metabolism Institute; previously at University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine.

Alfin Vicencio, MD, Associate Professor, Department of Pediatrics, Chief of the Division of Pulmonology, and member, The Mindich Child Health and Development Institute; previously at Steven and Alexandra Cohen Children’s Medical Center at North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health System.

Randi S. Wasserman, MD, Associate Professor, Department of Pediatrics; previously at New York University Langone Medical Center.

PICTURED: 1. Nelly Alia-Klein, PhD. 2. Nina Bhardwaj, MD, PhD. 3. Ira Blaufarb, MD. 4. Andrew Casden, MD. 5. Julide T. Celebi, MD. 6. Farooq A. Chaudhry, MD. 7. Jean-Frederic

Colombel, MD. 8. Veronica Delaney, MD, PhD. 9. Larry Di Fabrizio, MD. 10. Nicholas DuBois, MD. 11. Mary E. Fowkes, MD, PhD. 12. Adolfo García Ocaña, PhD. 13. Sacha Gnjatic, PhD.

14. Rita Goldstein, PhD. 15. Jorge E. Gomez, MD. 16. Dorothy Grice, MD. 17. Fatemeh Haghighi, PhD. 18. Donna A. Ingram, MD. 19. Stuart B. Kahn, MD. 20. Paul Kuflik, MD.

21. Francesco Leanza, MD. 22. Sabina Lim, MD. 23. Joseph Lurio, MD. 24. Michael G. Neuwirth, MD. 25. Samir M. Parekh, BBS. 26. Ramon Parsons, MD, PhD. 27. Linda Prine, MD.

28. Avraham Reichenberg, PhD. 29. Donald Scott, PhD. 30. Amy Tiersten, MD. 31. Rupangi Vasavada, PhD. 32. Alfin Vicencio, MD.

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The Friedman Brain Institute Dara Dickstein, PhD, Assistant Professor; New Investigators Research Grant; Alzheimer’s Association

Charles Mobbs, PhD, Professor; China Strategic Alliance of Prevention and Treatment Technology for Diabetes, Consortium of Chinese Central Government, Universities, Research, Institute and Industries

Eric Nestler, MD, PhD, Professor; Anna Monika Prize in Depression Research, Anna Monika Foundation

Anne Schafer, MD, PhD, Assistant Professor; Director’s New Innovator Award, National Institute for Health

The Tisch Cancer Institute

Margaret Baron, MD, PhD, Professor; Executive Leadership in Academic Medicine (ELAM) Program, Drexel University College of Medicine

Nina Bhardwaj, MD, PhD, Professor; Chair-elect, steering committee Cancer Immunology Working Group, American Association for Cancer Research; member, Scientific Advisory Council of the Cancer Research Institute

Carmel J. Cohen, MD, Professor; National Leadership Award, American Cancer Society

Ross Cagan, PhD, Professor; Editor-in-Chief, Disease Models and Mechanisms

Scott Friedman, MD, Professor; Paustian Visiting Professor, University of Nebraska Medical Center; Winter Memorial Lecture, University of Chicago, Illinois School of Medicine; Balistreri Visiting Professor, University of Cincinnati School of Medicine; visiting professor, Loyola University, School of Medicine; fellow, American College of Physicians; International Recognition Award, European Association for the Study of Liver; keynote lecturer, International Conference on Viral Hepatitis; keynote lecture, Latin American Association for the Study of Liver

Kenneth Rosenzweig, MD, Professor and Chair, Radiation Oncology; President-elect, American Radium Society

Julie B. Schur, PhD, Assistant Professor; Early Career Contribution Award, St. John’s University

Ming-Ming Zhou, PhD, Professor; fellow, American Association for the Advancement of Science

Department of Dermatology Kenneth Edelson, MD, Associate Clinical Professor; Volunteer 25th Year Recognition Award, American Academy of Dermatology

Emma Guttman, MD, PhD, Associate Professor; Awarded grant to study Biomarks of Pediatric Dermatitis, The American Academy of Dermatology

Mark Lebwohl, MD, Chairman and Sol and Clara Kest Professor; Everett Fox Award in Recognition of Expertise in the Clinical Practice of Dermatology and Volunteerism Award, The American Academy of Dermatology; Lifetime Achievement Award, The National Psoriasis Foundation; Lifetime Achievement Award, The American Skin Association; Leader of Distinction Award, Journal of Drugs in Dermatology

Department of Genetics and Genomics Sciences Alessia Baccarini, PhD, Assistant Professor; Paola Campese Award, the Italian Scientist and Scholars Foundation

Kurt Hirschorn, MD, Professor emeritus of pediatrics, genetics and genomic sciences and medicine; Victor McKusick Leadership Award, American Society of Human Genetics

Robert Desnick, PhD, Professor and Chairman Emeritus; Lifetime Achievement Award, Genetic Disease Foundation; Inventor of the Year Award, New York Intellectual Property Law Association

Gurav Pandy, PhD, Assistant Professor; program Chair, Biological Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining (BIOKDD) 2013 Workshop

Edward H. Schuman, PhD, Professor; Inventor of the Year Award, New York Intellectual Property Law Association

Brookdale Department of Geriatrics & Palliative MedicinePatricia A. Bloom, MD, Associate Professor; Special Recognition Award, The Mount Sinai Medical Center

Linda DeCherrie, MD, Assistant Professor; named House Call Doctor of the Year, American Academy of Home Care Physicians

James F. Holland, MD, Professor; Inaugural Fellow of the AACR Academy, American Association for Cancer Research (AACR)

Hanna Yoko Irie, MD, PhD, Assistant Professor; 2013 AACR—Genentech BioOncology Career Development Award for Research, American Association for Cancer Research (AACR)

Joseph M. Llovet, MD, Professor; president, International Liver Cancer Association (ILCA); International Hanns Popper Award, Falk Foundation; lecturer and Chair, American Association for the Advancement of Science Annual Meeting, Chicago, IL; lecturer and Chair, European Association for the Study of Liver—the International Liver Cancer Association joint Symposium, Barcelona; lecturer and Chair, Asia-Pacific Primary Liver Cancer Expert Meeting (APPLE 2013); lecturer and Chair, International Liver Cancer Association, Berlin, Germany; keynote lecturer; American Society of Clinical Oncology - Gastrointestinal Cancer Symposium, San Francisco; keynote lecture, European Association for the Study of Liver—The International Liver Congress, Barcelona, Spain; keynote lecture, Israel Association for the Study of the Liver, Tel Aviv; visiting professor, Mayo Clinic, SUNY Downstate Medical Center, NY, Fudan University, Shangai

Robert G. Maki, MD, PhD, Professor; Nobility in Science Award, Sarcoma Foundation of America

Vesna Najfeld, PhD, Research Professor; member and presenter, Plenary Session presentation “Cytogenomics of MPN”, Myelo Proliferative Neoplasms & related diseases, Euronet

Philippe Soriano, PhD, Professor; keynote speaker, Seattle Developmental Biology Winter Symposium; distinguished speaker, National Cancer Institute, Frederick MD; keynote speaker, North East Regional Meeting of the Society for Developmental Biology, Woods Hole, MA

Derek Leroith, PhD, Professor; Distinction in Endocrinology Award, American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists

Recognition Awards& More than 100 Mount Sinai faculty received significant honors in recent months.

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Judith L. Howe, PhD, Professor; Walter M. Beattie Jr. Award, State Society on Aging of New York State

Will Hung, MD, MPH, Assistant Professor; New Investigator Award, American Geriatrics Society

Amy Kelly, MD, Assistant Professor; Visiting Scholar, Aging Center, Duke University School of Medicine

Rosanne M. Leipzig, MD, PhD, Gerald and May Ellen Ritter Professor; named Council of Medical Specialty Societies Liaison, National Board of Medical Examiners; Allan Sandler Visiting Scholar in General Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital; Distinguished Professor in Geriatrics, Society of General Internal Medicine; Visiting Professor, University of Toronto, Baycrest

Diane E. Meier, MD, Catherine Gaisman Professor of Medical Ethics; Carol Selinske Founder’s Award, Hospice and Palliative Care Association of New York State; Contemplative Care Award, New York Zen Center for Contemplative Care

Albert L. Siu, MD, MSHS, Professor and Chair; Scientific Achievement Award, Chinese Medicine Society

Rainier P. Soriano, MD, Associate Professor; Leonard Tow Humanism Award In Medicine, the Gold Foundation

Department of Health Evidence and Policy Deborah D. Ascheim, MD, Associate Professor; Chair, Board of Directors, Physicians for Human Rights

Emilia Bagiella, PhD, Professor; member, Peripheral and Central Nervous System Drugs Advisory Committee, U.S. Food and Drug Administration

Nina A. Bickell, MD, Professor; member, Cance Education Committee, American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO)

Annetine C. Gelijns, PhD, Professor and Chair; keynote presentation, Devices are not Drugs: Challenges for Assessing the Value of Innovation, Health Technology Assessment international (HTAi) Policy Forum, Barcelona, Spain

Lawrence C. Kleinman, MD, MPH, Associate Professor and vice Chair, Research and Education; 2012 consulting expert, Community Forum, Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services; guest editor, Pediatrics Supplement on Visioning, Measuring and Improving the Quality of Healthcare for Children: Insights from the

Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Clinical Scholars Program, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation; guest speaker, meeting of Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality-Centers for Medicare and Medicated Services Pediatric Quality Measures Program Informatics Workgroup, Innovating Health Information Technology: Moving Beyond the Electronic Medical Record for Pediatric Quality Measure Development; Letter of Honor for Excellence in Reviewing, Annals of Internal Medicine

Alan J. Moskowitz, PhD, Professor and Vice-Chair; keynote presentation, Devices are not Drugs: Challenges for Assessing the Value of Innovation, Health Technology Assessment international (HTAi) Policy Forum, Barcelona, Spain

Michael K. Parides, PhD, Professor; member, Editorial Board, Stroke

Mount Sinai Heart Institute Hina W. Chaudhry, MD, TEDMED Innovator Scholar, TEDMED; keynote speaker, Dr. Hans G. Folkesson Memorial Lecture Series, Northeast Ohio Medical University; Best Manuscript 2012, The Editorial Board of Circulation Research at the American Heart Association Scientific Session 2012

Valentín Fuster, MD, Director of Mount Sinai Heart and Physician-in-Chief; Legend of Cardiovascular Medicine, American College of Cardiology; Honoris Causa, La Plata National University, La Plata, Argentina; 2012 Research Achievement Award, American Heart Association; 2013 2013 Münster Heart Center International Award, Münster, Germany; 2013 Simon Dack Award (Opening Lecture), American College of Cardiology, San Francisco, CA; 2013 Leahey Lecture Award, Columbia University; 2013 Ron Haddock AHA/ASA International Impact Award, American Heart Association; 2013 Arthur S. Agatston Cardiovascular Disease Prevention Award, Society of Cardiovascular Computer Tomography (SCCT)

Jason Kovacic, MD, Assistant Professor; Emerging Leader, American College of Cardiology and Society of Cardiac Angiography and Interventions; keynote speaker, Annual Scientific Session, Meeting American Heart Association

Lori Kroft, MD, Professor; American Heart Association Luminary of Heart, American Heart Association

Mary Ann McLaughlin, MD, Professor; American Heart Association Luminary of Heart, American Heart Association

Pedro Moreno, MD, Professor; Two Star Rating, Cardiac Cauterization Safety Rating, New York State Department of Health

Jagat Narula, MD, Professor; Master of the American College of Cardiology (MACC), American College of Cardiology

Jeffrey Olin, MD, Professor; Chair for Vascular Section for the American College of Cardiology 2014 Scientific Program Committee, American College of Cardiology; Chair Writing Group: American Heart Association State of the Science on Fibromuscular Dysplasia, American Heart Association

Robert S. Rosenson, MD, FACC, Professor; board member, National Lipid Association; regional board member, North East Lipid Association; Richard Lewar Plenary Lecturer, University of Toronto; Grand Rounds/Visiting Professor, William Beaumont Hospital-Oakland University School of Medicine (Royal Oak, MI)

Partho P. Sengupta, MD, DM, FACC, FASE, Associate Professor; 2013 Fleigenbaum Lecturer, American Society of Echocardiography; 2013 International Lecturer, 2013 Honorary Lifetime Member, Education Committee, British Society of Echocardiography; 2012-2015 Board of Directors and Officers Slate, American Society of Echocardiography

David A. Vorchheimer, MD, Associate Professor; Best Presenatation, ACC 2013 awarded to abstract “Dabigatran versus Standard Antithrombotic Therapy for New Onset Nonvalvular Atrial Fibrillation: Impact on Hospice Length of Stay”, American College of Cardiology, Annual Scientific Sessions

Department of Medical EducationJoy Reidenberg, PhD, Professor; 2012 World Gold Medal, Best Science/Nature Film category, New York Television and Film Awards

Reena Karani, MD, Associate Professor and associate dean for curricular affairs and undergraduate medical education; National Award for Scholarship in Medical Education, Society of General Internal Medicine

Ki-Mark Mark, PhD, Associate Professor; 2012 Dean’s Award for Excellence in Teaching, Icahn School of Medicine

Yasmin S. Meah, MD, Associate Professor; Medical Student Teaching Award, Department of Medicine, Icahn School of Medicine

continued on page 57 »

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Protein Acts As “Off Switch” for Cell Reprogramming

A study led Emily Bernstein, PhD, Assistant Professor of Oncological

Sciences and Dermatology, showed that the protein macroH2A

prevents normal cells from being reprogrammed into stem cells and

has broad implications for both induced pluripotent stem cell technology and cancer biology. Dr. Bernstein’s team

compared cells with and without macroH2A; those

without the protein were much more plastic and

more easily reprogrammed into stem cells. The study,

published in Nature Communications, grew out of

Dr. Bernstein’s earlier discovery that the loss of

macroH2A is a key factor behind the metastasis of

melanoma. “These findings help us to understand the

progression of different cancers and how macroH2A

might be acting as a barrier to tumor development,”

said Dr. Bernstein.

Discovery of How Flu Times its Attack Suggests Novel Therapies

In a finding that could provide a novel design

platform for influenza vaccines, a team of researchers

led by Benjamin tenOever, PhD, Fishberg Professor of

Microbiology, discovered that the flu’s ability to thrive

is predicated upon a precise schedule. If it leaves a

cell too soon, the virus is too weak; if it leaves too late,

the immune system has time to kill it. Dr. tenOever’s

team found that the virus slowly accumulates one

particular protein that acts as a timer. “We wanted

to tap into the flu’s internal clock and find a way to

dismantle it,” said Dr. tenOever. The discovery may

lead to a new type of spray vaccine that is composed

of a virus with a “defective clock,” which could prove

safer for the very old and very young. The study was

published in Cell Reports.

Researchers Identify Promising Drug Target for Depression

Decreased expression of a protein called Rac1 may be a primary

cause of depression, according to a study by Mount Sinai researchers

published in Nature Medicine. The animal model study also found

that, by increasing the levels of Rac1 through a process called gene

transfer, researchers could mitigate depression. “Major depressive

disorder affects millions of Americans, many of whom are no longer

benefitting from currently available treatments,” said first author

Sam Golden, a graduate student in the laboratory of Scott Russo, PhD,

Assistant Professor of Neuroscience. “There is a significant unmet

need for new drug targets for treatment-resistant depression and for

better understanding of the epigenetic underpinnings of this disease.”

(For more information about Dr. Russo’s research,

see p. 24; for more about Mr. Golden, see p. 44.)

Bypass Surgery May be Best Treatment for Diabetics with Coronary Artery Disease

The FREEDOM trial, led by Valentín Fuster, MD, PhD,

Physician-in-Chief and Director of Mount Sinai Heart,

answered a longstanding question about the best way

to treat diabetics who suffer from advanced coronary

artery disease: Its conclusive finding shows that bypass

surgery is more effective than angioplasty. Heart

disease is the leading cause of morbidity and mortality

for people with type 2 diabetes. “Treating people with

diabetes and heart disease presents unique challenges

due to increased risk for death, heart attack, and

stroke,” said Dr. Fuster. “The FREEDOM trial is the first

long-term, multisite trial that seeks to firmly establish

a standard of care for this high-risk population.” The

largest clinical trial of its kind, the study followed 1,900

patients at 140 sites in 20 countries. The results were

published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

New Genomic Sequencing Approach Solves Mystery of E. Coli Outbreak

Underscoring the potential impact of “big data”

analytical techniques, a team of researchers led by

Eric Schadt, PhD, Director of the Icahn Institute for

Genomics and Multiscale Biology, was able to pinpoint

the causes of a deadly 2011 outbreak of E. coli bacteria in

Germany by harnessing advanced genomic sequencing

technology capable of integrating DNA and epigenetic

data. The researchers discovered that the unusual

virulence of the particular strain in the outbreak was due not simply

to its genetic code, but also to modifications to that code produced by

different types of enzymes. “Living systems are composed of lots of

pieces interacting in very complex ways,” said Dr. Schadt, who is also

the Jean C. and James W. Crystal Professor of Genomics, and Chair

of the Department of Genetics and Genomic Science. “To understand

Research Roundup

“

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These findings

help us to understand

the pro-gression

of different cancers.

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such systems, we need to take into account more of the information

on a global level, not just a single protein level. This is how we can see

the whole picture of an organism’s biology.”

Study Shows Hospice Care for Medicare Patients Is Higher Quality, More Cost Effective

A study conducted by a team of Icahn School of

Medicine researchers and published in Health Affairs

found that terminally ill Medicare patients who

enrolled in hospice for end-of-life care received better

care at a significantly lower cost to the government

than those who did not, and that hospice enrollment

was associated with significant reductions in admis-

sions to hospital and intensive care units, days spent

in a hospital, rates of 30-day readmissions, and

in-hospital death. “Our study is the first to combine

rich survey data and Medicare claims to demonstrate

that an investment in the Medicare hospice benefit

could translate into millions of dollars saved annually

for the Medicare system and higher quality care for

patients and families,” said the study’s lead author,

Amy S. Kelley, MD, MSHS, Assistant Professor of

Geriatrics and Palliative Medicine.

Researchers Propose New Strategy for Diagnosing and Treating Fibrotic Diseases

A team of scientists led by Scott Friedman, MD, Dean

for Therapeutic Discovery at the Icahn School of

Medicine, recently published a paper recommending a

new approach to treating fibrotic diseases of the liver,

lung, kidney, and other organs, which are responsible

for as many as 45 percent of all deaths in the industri-

alized world. “Therapy for Fibrotic Diseases: Nearing

the Starting Line” summarizes research conducted by

Dr. Friedman and other leaders in the field and finds

that many organ-specific fibrotic diseases may share

biological triggers that could form the basis for new,

broadly effective diagnostics and therapeutics. “Our

intention was to capture the leading edge of the science and also to

provide pointers for how to move the field forward,” said Dr. Friedman,

who was the first scientist to isolate and characterize the hepatic

stellate cell, the key cell type responsible for scar production in liver.

(For more information about Dr. Friedman, see p. 7.)

Ketamine Shows Significant Benefit in People with Treatment-Resistant Depression

Patients with treatment-resistant major depression saw dramatic

improvement in their illness after treatment with the anesthetic

ketamine, according to the largest ketamine clinical trial to date,

directed by researchers from the Icahn School of

Medicine. The antidepressant benefits of ketamine

were seen within 24 hours, whereas traditional

antidepressants can take days or weeks to demon-

strate a reduction in depression. Dan Iosifescu,

MD, Associate Professor of Psychiatry, and James

Murrough, MD, Assistant Professor of Psychiatry,

co-led the clinical trial with Sanjay Mathew, MD,

of Baylor College of Medicine. Dennis S. Charney,

MD, Anne and Joel Ehrenkranz Dean of the

Icahn School of Medicine, who discovered the

depression-treatment potential of ketamine,

hailed the trial’s findings as a breakthrough.

“Major depression is one of the most prevalent and

costly illnesses in the world, and yet currently

available treatments fall far short of alleviating

this burden,” said Dr. Charney. “There is an urgent

need for new, fast-acting therapies, and ketamine

shows important potential in filling that void.”

Phase 1 Clinical Trial Finds First Drug to Stop Progression of Myelofibrosis

A phase I clinical trial designed and ran by

Mount Sinai physicians found that, at low-doses,

panobinostat (LBH589) successfully halted and

reversed myelofibrosis, a life-threatening blood

cancer. Ronald Hoffman, MD, Albert A. and Vera

G. List Professor of Medicine and Director of the

Myeloproliferative Disorders Research Program,

and John O. Mascarenhas, MD, Assistant Professor

of Medicine (Hematology and Medical Oncology),

the principal investigators, found that signs of

significant improvement appeared a year after

patients were started on an oral regimen of low-dose panobi-

nostat. “We have patients who are doing well after two to three

years, and whose survival was predicted to be on the order of

months,” says Dr. Mascarenhas. Results of the clinical trial were

published in the British Journal of Haematology.

“

”

We have patients who are

doing well after two to three years.

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How do you tHink like an innovator?According to Geoffrey W. Smith, JD, Director of Mount Sinai’s Center for Technology, Innovation and Entrepreneurship

and a professor in the Department of Health Evidence and Policy, innovation is a process—and it can be learned.

Step 2: analyze

Map tHe Gap ➔ StakeHolderS & MarketS ➔ Specification

• Do a gap analysis: Build a map to show where are there gaps in the current

state of care that could be filled with different technology solutions.

• Look at every stakeholder involved in this process and their perspectives:

clinical, administration, company, patient perspectives. Who will win or

lose based on the invention of a new technology?

• Do a market analysis: Do you want to pursue

this commercially?

• Return to the NEED statement and draft a

NEED specification, summarizing in one

document all the various components of this

first part of the innovation process, and the

criteria necessary to solve the problem.

tHe patHway to innovation

Side Step:

Don’t take at face

value what everyone

is saying to you.

Synthesize, but add

creative thinking and

move beyond just

received wisdom.

Step 1: identify the problem and the need

obServation ➔ probleM ➔ need

• Spend time—a lot of time—observing

the challenges at hand.

• Identify the problem: A recurring

situation in which doubt, uncertainty

or difficulty is met in the process of

what you’re observing.

• Reshape that problem into a need:

What is the CHANGE in outcome

required to address the need?

That CHANGE is the INNOVATION.

Side Step:

Be sure to write every-

thing down—create a

NEED statement that

describes the CHANGE

you’re looking for.

Identifying that NEED is

critical and important,

because that’s what will

create the technology

opportunity.

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So, How do we follow a Structured proceSS to Generate ideaS? brainStorMinG.

Brainstorming requires participants to suspend temporarily

their instinct to criticize new ideas and open themselves up

to a rapid flow of new possibilities and connections. Failure

is inevitable—you must be open to failure so that you can

eventually get to the right answer.

four tHeMeS to keep in mind while…

1 : Ideation. don’t be analytical. Just put aside your critical

filter and all preconceived notions. It doesn’t matter if an

idea is possible or impossible—it just needs to be new.

Ideation in and of itself is valuable. don’t just accept

received wisdom; get outside it.

2 : Cross pollinate. look across specialties and disciplines;

don’t go into your silo and use your usual shorthand.

For this, you need people—other people, people who

will think differently.

3 : the stage. apply your ideas across different platforms

to see how they will play on different stages.

4 : repeat. Each idea has to be used repetitively, differ-

ently, iteratively in a feedback loop, through different

technology. Cover the full range of possibilities

available to you.

…you practice these 7 steps to successful brainstorming

1 : defer judgment. accept any new idea, and move on

quickly to the next concept. think about the interaction

in that room and don’t include people who haven’t

bought in.

2 : Have wild ideas. a good idea may be hiding right next to

your crazy, goofy idea.

3 : Build on the ideas of others. Force yourself to say,

“Building on your idea, what if….” this keeps everyone in

the conversation and may get more ideas out of them.

4 : Go for quantity. set a goal—how many can we generate

in the time we have? the target forces the pace.

5 : one conversation at a time. a facilitator can help.

6 : Be visual. People need to see the ideas as they’re being

generated. Write them down or project them.

7 : stay focused on the topic. on a different board, write

down ideas that are interesting but not on-topic.

and remember—your goal is to connect that hunch that’s

been sitting in the back of your mind and waiting to become

a good idea.

tHe patHway to innovation

Step 3: invent

find tHe network ➔ ideaS ➔ SolutionS

Many of the best ideas are hunches, not revelations—something

itching at you in the back of your mind. GENUINE INSIGHT IS HARD

TO COME BY. The missing element is often in someone else’s brain,

and you need to get to it.

• Find and hook into the network that allows you to connect to that

missing element. Give it time: You don’t want anything to keep you

from following up on that initial hunch.

• The natural tendency is to skip straight to Solutions, but we lose

the important exploration that comes from coming up with new

IDEAS—often dismissed as childlike or a playful waste of time. But

it’s just as important as fact-finding because it allows us to envision

what is really possible. Generate as many ideas as you can, working

with a network of people {for more on this, see sidebar}.

• Idea generating leverages a group of

cross-functional contributors, people

with different perspectives, who are

seeking to solve a problem, and not just

a single “expert” or group of “experts” to

come up with a solution.

• SOLVE. Your goal: One good idea, and

one good development strategy to

support that idea.

Side Step:

Beware the devil’s

advocate, and suspend

criticism. We’re great

critics but not so good

at going with the flow

and seeing how many

new ideas we can

generate.

17

THE SEARCHERS

SEARCHERSSEARCHERSBy Travis adkins

illusTraTion By edward mcgowan

TheThe

THE SEARCHERS

Nina Bhardwaj, MD, PhDDirector of the Immunotherapy Program at The Tisch Cancer Institute

ProBlem? “I’ve spent my career studying the immune system’s

response to cancer. We’ve learned that there are three primary

challenges. The first involves optimally activating dendritic cells, the

cells that normally initiate a potent immune response by priming T

cells that can eliminate cancer cells. Secondly, even if the dendritic

cells are making a steady supply of T cells, the cancer can shut the T

cells off before they reach the tumor. Finally, the tumor itself is such a

‘messy’ microenvironment that when the T cells get there, they can’t

get in and do their job. My lab is tackling all three problems, with a

particular focus on dendritic cells.”

soluTion “I led the first controlled study in humans that showed

that we can ‘jumpstart’ the immune system by taking precursors

of dendritic cell out of patients, cultivating them in the lab, and

returning them to the patient’s body. Now I’m

investigating ways to make that process

simpler and less expensive; for example,

invigorating cells while they’re still in

the body with specialized adjuvants.

We’re also working to improve other

steps in the immune response, such

as ‘rearming’ exhausted T cells, and

designing drugs that can modify the

tumor’s microenvironment. As we

learn more about the immune system

and cancer, I predict that as many as

one-third of patients will be treated with

immunotherapies.”

and… i’d like to see this problem solved: “Poverty. Poverty robs people

of their potential, especially for children. Without resources so many

people cannot dream and cannot hope. Eliminating poverty would

level the playing field for so many.”

Kristen Brennand, PhDAssistant Professor, Psychiatry and Neuroscience Member, The Friedman Brain Institute

ProBlem? “I study schizophrenia. When it comes right down to it,

we don’t know what types of neurons are affected in schizophrenia

or how they’re altered, at least in part because is it’s extremely difficult

to get live cells from human patients. Without knowing what’s going

wrong in the disease, we can’t identify new drugs. Every drug used

to treat schizophrenia today is derived from

one discovered by accident in the 1950s,

and they’re all imperfect drugs with

serious side effects.”

soluTion “With induced

pluripotent stem cell technology,

I can take skin cells from patients

with schizophrenia as well as

from healthy individuals and turn

them into neurons. So then I have

live human neurons from patients

and controls that I can compare in order

to ask simple questions. How are the cells

different? How can I make them the same again?

We’re able to model how schizophrenia starts developing

in its earliest stages, in the fetal or early childhood brain. That’s really

important, because up until now, we’ve only been able to look at the

endpoint. Now we can ask, ‘What goes wrong twenty years before

schizophrenia manifests?’”

and…innovation means: “Asking questions that no one else is asking.

The team of researchers that developed induced pluripotent stem

cells asked a question that no one else dared to ask, and revolu-

tionized what we know about cell fate determination. Ten years ago

people thought cell fate was permanent; now we know they’re much

more plastic than anyone would have imagined.”

It’s the quintessential plot of a classic Western. An enigmatic stranger rides into town and is inevitably drawn

into a confrontation with the villain. And somewhere along the way, one of the locals will deliver a variation

on this: “You must be looking for trouble.” What does this have to do with the 17 innovators you’ll meet here?

They go in search of problems. They roam the medical frontier because it’s the only place where they feel at

home. And though their turf is a lab bench instead of the OK Corral, and they draw samples instead of a six

shooter, they don’t back down. And they’re a little more articulate than the prototypical good guy. Let’s listen.

19

THE SEARCHERS

Kevin Costa, MS, PhDDirector of Cardiovascular Cell and Tissue EngineeringAssociate Professor, Medicine (Cardiology)

ProBlem? “The way cardiovascular drugs are currently developed, a

lot of the data and validation process is based on model systems that

aren’t representative of what happens in patients. The screening tests

required for FDA approval involve either animal studies or human

cells that aren’t cardiac cells, which don’t have much relevance. Drugs

can make it all the way to preclinical or clinical trials and fail. Or worse,

they can get on the market and end up failing because of unexpected

side effects.”

soluTion “We’re using induced pluripotent stem cell technology

to recreate functional, living heart muscle in the laboratory. It’s a

brand new approach; my colleagues and I published one of the first

three papers to describe it. We’re also developing new technology

and analytical tools that will allow us to measure the recreated heart

muscle’s function and monitor how it works. Our hope is that by

creating something that’s more representative of human heart muscle,

we’ll enable more effective screening outcomes and improve the

process of drug discovery. I think that within five years, we’re going

to be able to routinely create and analyze the unique heart cells of

individual patients.”

and…The person who inspires me is:

“The physicist Richard Feynman. He

was a fascinating character. He once

described how one of the key equations

he developed came about when he was

sitting in a cafeteria and someone threw

a paper plate, and he observed how

it wobbled and spun through the air.

He worked out the equations that described that motion just for the

fun of it, and realized that those equations also applied to the spin of

subatomic particles. He ended up getting the Nobel Prize for it.”

Arvin Dar, PhDAssistant Professor, Oncological Sciences and Structural and Chemical Biology Member, The Tisch Cancer Institute

ProBlem? “It’s easy to find drugs that can kill tumor cells—but

incredibly difficult to find drugs that can kill tumor cells without

affecting normal biology. Right now we might have an idea of what

particular gene or protein targets we want to inhibit, but we don’t know

which ones to avoid because the network they’re embedded in is very

complex; targeting just one part of the network can result in toxic

outcomes. We’re identifying genes that are important drivers of disease

and pathology, but we haven’t been able to translate that understanding

into new therapies.”

soluTion “My research focuses in particular on applying a systems

pharmacology approach to the oncogenic form of the RAS gene,

which occurs in more than twenty percent of all cancers. Instead of

focusing on a single target, we design a model of the entire network of

which RAS is a part. By genetically

engineering fruit flies and other

simpler organisms to replicate that

network, and probing it with small

molecules and compounds, we can

immediately get a sense of whether

a drug will be useful or toxic. That

will bring us closer to our goal of

developing therapeutics in diseases

where we don’t have any.”

and…The person who inspires me is: “I really admire Steve Jobs for

creating an entirely new industry. He once said that Apple created the

type of products that people didn’t even know they needed. That’s an

amazing vision to see something so far in advance.”

Joel Dudley, PhDAssistant Professor, Genetics and Genomics Sciences Member, Icahn Institute for Genomics and Multiscale Biology

ProBlem? “Historically there’s been little integration among different

medical and biology disciplines, whether through sharing data or

working together. An evolutionary biologist might never work with a

researcher investigating drug response—even though evolution can

clearly inform how people respond to drugs. The same thing is true

with disease areas: A cardiologist working on heart disease might

never interact with an immunologist who specializes in psoriasis, even

though there are well-established links between the two diseases. We

need to understand how everything is connected across biology and

medicine to discover new findings, new knowledge, and new drugs.”

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soluTion “We now

have the data, the

computing power,

and the informatics

methodologies to

identify new oppor-

tunities for improved

medicine. For example,

I developed a software

system that matches

diseases and drugs at

the molecular level, to

see if drugs used for

one disease can be

repurposed for others.

One of the matches

was between a specific

type of small cell lung cancer and imipramine, which is used to

treat depression; the results were so promising that investigators

are conducting a human trial. Ultimately we want to throw out our

preconceptions about how things should be connected, and let data

tell us how things are connected.”

and…The person who inspires me is: “Eric Schadt [Director of the Icahn

Institute for Genomics and Multiscale Biology] is one of the biggest

reasons I left sunny California to come to New York. He showed how

powerful it was to take broad, genome-wide measurements and

develop mathematical and computational methods that are able to

figure out connections between the data.”

Jeremiah Faith, PhDAssistant Professor, Genetics and Genomics Sciences and Medicine (Clinical Immunology)Member, Icahn Institute for Genomics and Multiscale Biology

ProBlem? “I’m trying to understand how bacteria in our intestine

influence our health, in particular in patients with inflammatory

bowel disease (IBD). Every human has about a hundred to two

hundred different types of intestinal bacteria, which

are difficult to study for several reasons. The

sheer number of possible combinations

between the way those bacteria interact

with each other and with their host is

an enormous quantitative problem.

Another challenge is that most intes-

tinal bacteria will grow only in an

anaerobic (no oxygen) environment;

recreating that environment in the lab—

without sacrificing the ability to rapidly

combine different permutations—is crucial.”

soluTion “We’re harnessing next-generation sequencing technology

and mathematical algorithms and developing the biotechnology

tools—such as an anaerobic robotic system—to manipulate and

quantify large communities of bacteria quickly. I think the thing that

sets my lab apart is that we have the mathematical framework to

model the whole system, the biotech background to build

the tools we need, and the ability to put those skills and

technologies together, all in one place.”

and… i’d like to see this problem solved: “The human

tendency to favor conservative incremental progress,

over taking risks that might foster economic, cultural,

political, or scientific paradigm shifts.”

Jean-Sebastian hulot, MD, PhDAssociate Professor, Medicine (Cardiology)

ProBlem? “I’m interested in the molecular and cellular mecha-

nisms and alterations that occur during heart failure, and in how we

can directly intervene within heart muscle cells to treat the disease.

Specifically, I’m focusing on the role that calcium plays during heart

failure. Calcium makes the heart contract. During heart failure, the

heart’s ability to contract is impaired, so intuition would tell you that

calcium levels must be decreasing. In fact, it’s exactly the reverse:

heart muscle cells are completely overwhelmed by calcium, and they

don’t know how to use it. We’re trying to understand why that is, and

how we can change it.”

LeXICON

Risk: Embracing, not just accepting, the possibility of failure.

21

THE SEARCHERS

soluTion “We’ve identified the signaling error in the protein, Stim1,

that allows calcium to continue entering the heart when it isn’t

needed. Researchers already knew that heart cells were unable to

move calcium to the right place at the right time, but we proved that

the problem is much more fundamental. The overactive Stim1 leads

to a permanent refilling of calcium that worsens the disease over time.

That insight opens up a whole new area of drug targeting possibilities.

Most current therapies treat the consequences of the disease, not the

cause. Our discovery can change that paradigm.“

and…innovation means: “Progressive evolution, not revolution.

It’s different teams providing different pieces of a puzzle, and then

working together to build something.”

Chang Won Kho, PhD and Ah Young Lee, PhD Postdoctoral Fellows, Medicine (Cardiology)

ProBlem? “The discovery of the Serca2a protein, which is deficient

in heart failure, by Dr. Roger Hajjar [Director of Mount Sinai’s Wiener

Family Cardiovascular Research Laboratories and the Arthur and

Janet C. Ross Professor of Medicine]—and Dr. Hajjar’s subsequent

work on a gene therapy treatment that can restore Serca2a [MYDICAR,

now in phase 2 clinical trials]—has been one of the most tantalizing

developments in cardiovascular care of the past decade. MYDICAR

has shown extraordinary success in reversing heart failure. The

problem has been that the effects of the treatment haven’t been

permanent. We wanted to determine why that was.”

soluTion “We found that Serca2a is regulated by another protein,

Sumo1, and that increasing Sumo1 stabilizes levels of Serca2a. That

finding has important implications for improving the efficacy of

MYDICAR. But beyond that, because Sumo1 protects Serca2a from

being damaged in the first place, it can also serve as the basis for

therapies that target heart failure at its earliest stages rather than

reversing the damage, as MYDICAR does. In just the two years since we

announced our findings, we have already identified two molecules, as

well as a gene therapy approach, that could be used to enhance Sumo1.”

and…innovation means: “Having our different perspectives. Our original

research focus was cancer biology, but it turns out that studying how

to kill cancer cells also makes it easier to understand how cells can

survive heart failure; the mechanisms are very similar. A cancer biology

background gave us a perspective that we would not have had as

cardiology researchers.”   

Paul Lawrence Vice President, Academic Informatics and Technology

ProBlem? “My team has been charged with reimagining the way that

students, faculty, and researchers access academic content at Mount

Sinai by deploying next-generation support environments. Our goal

is to make the process simpler, more elegantly designed, user-friendly,

and to expand the Medical Center’s ability to deliver scholarly resources

and distance learning platforms to constituencies anywhere in the

world. There are many incredibly powerful systems in the medical

field; the next generation of leading academic medical centers will be

those that make those systems easy to use. Our second goal is to evolve

our development process into building systems and processes that

focus on innovation and usability, encouraging rapid prototyping and

deployment. This is a technology support environment that embraces

change, creativity and entrepreneurial spirit.”

soluTion “In practical terms, one of the first things we’ll do is draw up

a blueprint for redesigning the Levy Library to become a world-class

research and learning commons that sparks intellectual discovery,

creativity, collaboration, and scholarly communication. Beyond our

Library, we are investing new resources to evolve our classrooms

into more flexible learning spaces so that they can meet a variety of

teaching styles, especially teaching at a distance. I’m also hoping to

improve the day-to-day technological experience so that the next

generation of questions will be not, ‘How do I connect my laptop up

to the internet?’ but ‘How can technology speed my path to discovery

and innovation?’”

and…The person who inspires me is:

“Sir Richard Branson, the founder

of Virgin Group. He epitomizes the

concepts of innovative thinking,

creativity, and world-class service. It’s

great to build something innovative—

but to ensure that it’s sustainable, and

that you can keep that brand consis-

tently excellent, is incredible.” © stocklight

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Michael Linderman, MS, PhDAssistant Professor, Genetics and Genomic Sciences Member, Icahn Institute for Genomics and Multiscale Biology

ProBlem? “As our understanding of the genetics of disease has

grown, we’ve realized that isolating the genes associated with a

particular condition is just the beginning. The data aren’t static,

they’re dynamic; to think that one analysis, at one moment, will give

us the total picture is just not the reality. We have to interact contin-

ually with patients and integrate new infor-

mation about their family, their environment,

their reaction to medications, and more to draw

an ever-richer picture of how the genome affects

their health.”

soluTion “We’re building the technology, the

infrastructure, and the capabilities that will facil-

itate an ongoing conversation among patients,

clinicians, and researchers. One of our first priorities is to educate

clinicians on how to interpret and manipulate these large, complex

sets of data; last year we offered a first-of-its-kind personal genome

analysis course in which students had the opportunity to sequence

and analyze their own genome. In the longer term, we want to offer

patients personalized tools that empower patients to take more

control of their health care, like mobile apps they can use to monitor

their condition. Leveraging ‘big data’ will enable doctors to work more

effectively with their patients to improve their health.”

and…The person who inspires me is: “It’s actually three people: Jerome

H. Saltzer, David P. Reed, and David D. Clark, the co-authors of the

paper ‘End to End Arguments in System Design.’ It’s a seminal paper

in computer science and system design. It’s not about an invention—

it’s about a philosophy on how to approach design in a way that

focuses on the end result that you’re really trying to seek, instead of

focusing on smaller problems.”

hirofumi Morishita, MD, PhDAssistant Professor, Psychiatry , Ophthalmology, and Neuroscience Member, The Friedman Brain Institute and The Mindich Child Health and Development Institute

ProBlem? “One of the most exciting developments in neuroscience

in the last 10 years has been new insights into the biology of neuro-

plasticity, which refers to the brain’s ability to learn, adapt, and rewire

itself. Until recently we thought neuroplasticity was limited to a critical

period in childhood, and

that the window was largely

closed by adulthood. That

meant that many neuro-

developmental disorders

were almost untreatable in

adults. But neuroscientists

have come to understand

that we can actually reopen

that critical period later in

life. My research uses the

visual system to identify the

molecular mechanisms that

govern neuroplasticity and

explores how those mecha-

nisms can be applied to the

adult brain for therapeutic

intervention.”

soluTion “We’re looking at a molecule called Lynx1, which acts as

a ‘brake’ that limits neuroplasticity. In my previous investigations, I

conducted animal model studies of the visual disorder ambylopia (‘lazy

eye’), and established that by removing Lynx1, we could reintroduce

plasticity and restore normal vision. We also found that an existing

drug used to treat Alzheimer’s disease has an opposite action to

Lynx1 and could have possible therapeutic value for ambylopia; that

finding is now being tested in an early clinical trial. Using Lynx1 as

our basis, we’re expanding our map of the molecular network that

regulates plasticity. This will allow us to find better, more robust drugs

to enhance brain plasticity and to improve therapies for neurodevelop-

mental disorders from autism to schizophrenia.”

and… i’d like to see this problem solved:

“I would like to see Paul Gauguin’s question

‘Where Do We Come From? What Are We?

Where Are We Going?‘ answered. I believe

the key is the merge of humanities and

sciences. Science can unmask ‘what are

we?‘ but humanity is necessary to decide

how we use science and technology to

define ‘where we are going.‘”

LeXICON

PhenotyPe: Observable characteristics, such as hair or eye color, that correspond to a genetic condition.

23

THE SEARCHERS

Ramon Parsons, MD, PhDChair, Department of Oncological Sciences Member, The Tisch Cancer Institute

ProBlem? “Cancer is partly caused when the signal that tells a cell

to stop growing is switched off or altered in some other way and

a communications breakdown occurs. I’m investigating how that

happens. If we can gain greater understanding about how cells

communicate with each other to control growth, how tumor cells

corrupt that process, and how we can regulate these signals, we

can potentially suppress tumors from growing or even block them

from developing.”

soluTion “My most significant discovery so far has been the PTEN

gene, a tumor-suppressor gene that is mutated to become inactive in

a wide variety of cancers including breast cancer and prostate cancer.

Interestingly, we’re seeing evidence that PTEN may be inhibited by

insulin. So we’re also exploring the possibility that while PTEN may

be inactive in cancer, it may be overactive in diabetes—which could

mean that it’s a good target for new

diabetes therapeutics as well. Figuring

out how PTEN is regulated will give

us a better idea of how to intervene

therapeutically.”

and… i’d like to see this problem solved:

“Job opportunities for young people in

our evolving economy. I feel our society

needs to pay more attention to nurturing

creativity and productivity.”

Poulikos Poulikakos, PhD Assistant Professor, Oncological SciencesMember, The Tisch Cancer Institute

ProBlem? “For as many advances as we’ve made in cancer treatment,

the biology of the disease still remains largely a mystery. For example,

we do not know why some tumors depend on certain oncogenes

and signaling pathways for their growth, whereas others do not. My

research is about understanding such fundamental questions using

small molecule inhibitors. My focus is to develop strategies that target

the BRAF oncoprotein and downstream signaling, which is known to

give rise to some forms of melanoma, but I’m trying to use that lens to

answer broader questions that may apply to different types of cancer.”

soluTion “RAF inhibitors—which are the drugs used to treat

melanomas with the BRAF mutation—have been shown to be very

successful in blocking the growth of the cancer for a significant

amount of time, but eventually, the cancer becomes resistant to

the drug. I discovered a molecular mechanism which leads to that

resistance—a finding which is important not only because it allows

us to begin searching for better RAF inhibitors, but also because it

tells us something about cancer biology that we didn’t know before

and opens up new avenues of investigation for many forms of

cancer besides melanoma.”

and… i’d like to see this problem solved: “The increasing inequality in

the US and the world. Despite the technological advances, more and

more people have less access to education and high quality health care.

The ultimate goal of our efforts in science and medicine should be to

serve people and their needs.”

Scott Russo, PhD Assistant Professor, NeurosciencesMember, The Friedman Brain Institute

ProBlem? “When researchers develop drugs for depression, we

look for drugs that can affect the brain circuits that we know control

mood and motivation, so we can get rid of symptoms like anhedonia.

The problem is that the brain is by far the most complex organ in

body. The very same protein that in one area of the brain causes

depression, could be an anti-depressant in another area of the brain.

Since it’s so difficult to differentiate between the ‘good’ and ‘bad’

protein, the drug acts on everything and is rendered either marginally

effective or results in significant side effects.”

soluTion “I’m convinced that depression is strongly linked not only

to the brain and the central nervous system, but also to the body’s

immune system. I’ve conducted both human and animal model studies

that have shown there’s a very strong correlation. If my hypothesis is

valid, that could mean that depression is partly a dysfunction of the

immune system—which, in turn, means that we can target it there,

rather than in the brain, which would be vastly simpler. That would give

rise to an entirely new class of drugs that would be more effective than

those we have now.”

and…The person who inspires me is: “Charles

Darwin. He made a seemingly random obser-

vation that led to the formulation of a theory

that challenged dogma and transformed how

we think about evolution. His theory led to

major cultural changes and continues to

have a major impact on the fields of science

and medicine.”

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hugh Sampson, MDDean for Translational Biomedical ResearchProfessor, Pediatrics, Allergy, and Immunology

ProBlem? “‘Will my child have a fatal reaction?’ That’s the first

question parents ask when they find out their child has a food allergy—

and right now, with the diagnostic tools that we have, we can’t give

an answer. We have no way of telling how severe the reaction will be,

or whether they will outgrow it. Treatment options are also poor. The

current standard of care is to recommend avoidance and to provide

patients with medication like epinephrine to treat themselves. This

has created a situation in which emergency room departments in the

U.S. see one anaphylactic reaction every three minutes.”

soluTion “We’re developing a diagnostic test that identifies where

the IgE molecule—the antibody at the root of allergic reactions—

attaches to different food proteins, which will allow us to predict

with much greater accuracy the severity of a patient’s reaction. We’re

collaborating with an industry partner to commercialize that test.

Therapeutically, we’re conducting a phase one clinical trial of an

IgE-based vaccine for peanut allergies, and a phase two clinical trial

of a compound formulated from traditional Chinese herbal medicines

that has shown the potential to block anaphylactic reactions for

months and even years at a time.”

and… i’d like to see this problem solved: “The loss of civilized, reasoned

exchanges of ideas in the political and public arena, and the inability

to compromise. The world is not black and white, and our approach

to the world cannot be either.”

Robert Wright, MD, PhD Professor, Pediatrics and Preventive MedicineMember, The Mindich Child Health and Development Institute

ProBlem? “I want to understand why some people

are more susceptible than others to developing illness

when exposed to chemical toxicants. Some of it has

to do with genetics factors, but there are many other

susceptibility factors such as nutrition or social condi-

tions. These factors act synergistically with chemicals

too and we can use that information to develop

treatments. Even genetics needs environmental

measures to be understood. Think of the theory of

natural selection. Fundamentally, it’s about how genes

interact with the changing environment. Somehow,

we forgot that principle and study genetics in the

absence of environmental measures.“

soluTion “There needs to be a research investment

in the technology to measure our environment

that matches the effort we made in measuring our

genome. Even genetics research suffers without

environmental measures because they interact.

What my lab is doing is screening for many different

chemical toxicants at once—using patient samples

as well as samples from the person’s environment (air,

water, etc). We then analyze all that data with novel statistical methods

to quantify exposure. That measurement is then linked to genetics and

epigenetic measures so we can understand how they all interact and in

some cases produce disease.”

and… i’d like to see this problem solved: “The Detroit Tigers really

need a closer this year. Other than that, I would like to see a national

investment in public transportation, especially an increased use of

subways and commuter trains in midsize cities. It would help with the

environment and increase walking and exercise compared to driving.“

LeXICON

innovate:To make changes in something established; to introduce new ideas, methods, or projects.

25

THE ICAHN LIFTWhy the world’s most prominent activist investor picked Mount Sinai as his next investment—and his most meaningful yet.

26

BEST IN CLASS

Not too bad, as he would say, for

the Queens-born son of a cantor

and school teacher. Carl Icahn,

who is known the world over for his

corporate conquests and formidable

powers of persuasion in the board

room, has earned billions of dollars as

a result of careful pinpointing of his

potential targets. “In business, I look

for undervalued companies that have

good assets but that can be improved.

Sometimes this improvement is

attained by replacing top managers that

have done a poor job and are not held

accountable. I also look for companies

at the edge of secular change—

where innovation drives returns,”

Mr. Icahn said in a recent interview.

That approach has been extremely

successful for him. Since 2000, the

stock of his flagship company, Icahn

Enterprises, has increased well over

1,000 percent in value, which translates

into an annualized return of approxi-

mately 20 percent for those who

owned the units through that period.

“I have a tremendous passion for

what I do,” he says. “The most exciting

thing for me is when I find an under-

valued situation—something really new.

I read a biography of Alexander the

Great, and I can understand his need

to succeed. I’m certainly not Alexander,

but like him, I am a strategist.”

His success in business has also

propelled his efforts in philanthropy.

Over the years Mr. Icahn’s generosity

has benefitted—among others—various

children’s welfare organizations in New

York City, Mount Sinai, and Princeton

University, his alma mater. In 2010, he

signed Warren Buffet’s Giving Pledge,

answering the call to contribute

a substantial part of his fortune to

charity. Aware of the pressing need

for education reform, in 2001 Mr.

Icahn and his wife, Gail Golden Icahn,

embarked on a program to build

charter schools in the Bronx. Spurred

on the by the program’s academic

success, this year the seventh school

is opening its doors, and there are

plans to open a high school next year.

“We are very excited by the charter

movement and, among other initia-

tives, we hope to collaborate with the

experts at Mount Sinai to help train

the health care workers of tomorrow

from our community of committed

and successful students,” Mr. Icahn

said. “It’s important to me to give back

to this country that gave me so much.

I try to give money in ways that I think

will improve people’s lives and that will

give the best benefit to society for the

dollars to be spent.”

CoNvErSATIoN

A member of Mount Sinai’s Boards

of Trustees since 2000, Mr. Icahn

made his first contribution to the

Medical Center in 2001. That gift,

which resulted in the creation of the

Icahn Medical Institute, began a close

relationship between the Icahn family

and Mount Sinai as its strategic plan

took shape. Mrs. Icahn joined

her husband on the Boards of Trustees

earlier this year; she has been involved

with the Icahn family philanthropic

effort in health care and education for

many years. Kenneth L. Davis, MD,

the Mount Sinai CEO who was

recruited in 2003 by a Trustees

committee that included Carl Icahn,

noted that “Carl is extremely trusting

of our relationship, and he and Gail

have made an intellectual commitment

to believe in the management team

and the direction of Mount Sinai.

They share our desire to retain and

attract extraordinary people to create

innovative medical treatments based

on leading-edge science.”

After his arrival at Mount Sinai,

Dr. Davis and Mr. Icahn began to

meet every few months at a restaurant,

or at Mr. Icahn’s apartment, to talk

about changes at Mount Sinai.

Dr. Davis says that as an investor in a

number of biotech and pharmaceutical

companies, Mr. Icahn understands

the methods and goals of medical

research and the transformative nature

of the work of the Medical Center.

“He knows about the opportunities

that lay at our doorstep.” In turn,

Dr. Davis learned more about Carl

Icahn: his drive for new challenges;

his insatiable appetite for reading; his

love of chess—“things that didn’t have

to do with his business.” A philosophy

major who attended Princeton on a

scholarship, Mr. Icahn had enrolled in

medical school at New York University

but dropped out to join the Army, and

then headed to Wall Street, working for

Dreyfus & Co.

Mr. Icahn and Dr. Davis have forged

a friendship based on mutual respect,

through which the former’s intellectual

interests—research, education and

THE ICAHN LIFT

BY CELIA REGAN AND KATIE QUACKENBUSH SPIEGELPHOTOGRAPHY BY ANDREW LICHTENSTEIN

ArL ICAHN IS A ForCE oF NATurE. “I believe strongly in the Graham Dodd philosophy; the only difference is that I am not a

passive investor,” he says, using some simple syntax that belies the complex strategic process he

brings to his deals. Hundreds of Icahn deals, over decades, have been the result of his drive for

success, including corporate shifts that have changed the way entire industries do business.

With the stroke of a pen last November, Carl Icahn gave a significant boost to the innovative

activity at the heart of Mount Sinai. By donating $150 million to the medical school, and creating

the Icahn Medical Research Foundation (a medical research organization), to focus on genomics

and multiscale biology in collaboration with the Icahn School of Medicine, Mr. Icahn has voiced

his faith in the explosive potential of research and technology at Mount Sinai and its ability to

move medical mountains.

Left, the view from Carl Icahn’s midtown offices

on the November evening when he

and Kenneth Davis (insets, above left)

met to sign their historic agreement.

27

strategy—were matched with the latter’s

evolving vision for Mount Sinai’s future.

“The recent donation came together

through our shared conversations and

friendship,” says Dr. Davis. According to

Dr. Davis, Mr. Icahn’s gift will evolve over

many years. “It’s not just putting his name

on something. What he is facilitating is

the recruitment of many of the world’s

greatest scientists, particularly in the areas

of genomics, computational biology, and

big data management,” said Dr. Davis.

LogICAL EMpIrICISM

Maybe it was his NYU experience that

instilled in Mr. Icahn an affinity for and

sense of trust in the medical school setting,

where ideas flow and are exchanged,

synergies happen, and collaborations

are formed. Or maybe it was his love for

philosophy, honed at Princeton, which

energized both his passion for investment

and his fascination with science.

“I really got deeply into philosophy,”

Mr. Icahn said, “especially the meaning

of empiricism. I believe that you have to

have a very logical approach to what you

do. When you have that approach, you

are in the best position to overcome the

limiting structures that may appear to be

insurmountable. I believe that scientific

methodology and the philosophy of

science can change your society, and this,

in turn, plays into my love of strategy.”

While Mr. Icahn certainly has an interest

in research overall, genomics is the area in

which he has decided to make an impact

with his monumental philanthropy. “What

is so fascinating to Carl about genomics

is that he understands it is the key that

can unlock the pathophysiology of the

diseases,” said Dr. Davis. “And Carl knows

that genomics will give us targets for many

new therapeutics.”

“In the future, medicine will be so

personalized,” said Eric Schadt, PhD,

Director of the Icahn Institute for Genomics

and Multiscale Biology, where he and his

team are using leading-edge sequencing

technologies and powerful supercom-

puters to build disease models based on

a vast bank of samples collected at Mount

Sinai and other institutions. Ultimately,

Dr. Schadt and his team are creating a

huge, but accessible, data analytics center

where researchers can make inquiries,

characterize disease, and learn.

“The health care provider (of the future)

will have such a fine-grained understanding

of what has perturbed the network of

networks that resulted in the individual’s

disease that the physician will have both

the knowledge to predict the course of

the individual’s disease and the tools to

treat or even prevent it,” says Dr. Schadt.

Kind of like investing. “But instead of asking

which companies to bet on, we’re using

mathematical techniques to bet on which

patients require treatment, and for those

patients requiring treatment, we determine

what the best treatment is for them.”

grEAT pEopLE/ grEAT SCIENCE

Intellectually and financially, with the

naming of the Icahn School of Medicine,

Carl Icahn has invested in the education of

the next generation of outstanding doctors,

and in the kind of research that will soon

transform the treatment of human disease.

He has leveraged his reputation and name,

once again, to help transform an institution

and facilitate innovation—and this time,

improve the health and well-being of

many people.

Dr. Davis hails the evolutionary nature

of the gift—and Mr. Icahn welcomes that

evolution. “In business, secular change is

often an indicator of significant financial

opportunity,” said Mr. Icahn. “I believe

that genomics is a secular change in

science and health care, change that can

be realized at Mount Sinai. Money can do

great things in providing the opportunity

for engaged and dedicated people to

unleash the power of ideas. I am very proud

to have the opportunity to help unleash

the power of Mount Sinai and am confident

that, over time, we will all see the benefits

of that investment.”

“ I am very proud to have the opportunity to help unleash the power of Mount Sinai.”– Carl Icahn

LEXICON

NEED: A challenge or problem of profound significance that a solution must meet to truly be called an innovation; something that matters.

Carl Icahn and Gail Golden Icahn

after the signing.28

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13

RevolutionizingMedical education

icture yourself in the future—

not so far from now—with your

primary care doctor. She speaks

English, Mandarin Chinese, and

Spanish. As an undergraduate

she majored in international

relations and minored in history. She never

took the MCATs—the standard test required

for admission to schools of medicine in the

US—yet she excelled in medical school, where

her classmates had bachelor’s degrees in

computer science, music, American literature,

and engineering, among many other fields,

including biology and biochemistry. She is a

graduate of the Icahn School of Medicine at

Mount Sinai.

Or maybe this is the future you: Your

cancer has been in remission for years and

you feel strong and healthy. The scientist who

discovered the small molecule that led to the

treatment that has changed your life brought

the novel therapeutic from conception to

market by challenging preconceived notions

about the treatment of cancer. He collabo-

rated with colleagues who had expertise

in genomics, epidemiology, virology and

biomedical engineering. His seamless

relationship with investors and industry

allowed him to turn his out-of-the-box idea

into a therapy available to patients like you.

He is an alumnus of the Graduate School of

Biomedical Sciences at the Icahn School of

Medicine at Mount Sinai.

In both scenarios, the smart, creative, and

nontraditional students trained at Mount

Sinai provide the new paradigm for health

care. Diversifying the health care workforce,

accelerating the development of effective

therapies from the lab to patients’ lives, and

helping consumers take advantage of the

knowledge scientists possess about human

biology requires innovation, a

willingness to take risks, and a

commitment to new ways of

educating physician-scientists.

Mount Sinai is reimagining, reshaping, redesigning, and

By SiMa RaBinowitz

PhotogRaPhy By andRew lichtenStein

and don haMeRMan

P29

While biomedical science has changed

dramatically over the last century,

medical school admission require-

ments and curricula, and training in the

biological sciences, changed relatively

little. At the Icahn School of Medicine at

Mount Sinai and the Graduate School of

Biological Sciences, we’re in the process

of transforming every aspect of our

approach to education, from admissions

policies and requirements, to restruc-

turing of conventional science curricula,

to paradigm shifts in the undergraduate

medical education curriculum, to

professional development for faculty.

Mount Sinai’s recent affiliation with

the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

adds another new dimension: access

to engineering and the computational

sciences.

“Our times require the commitment

and courage to pursue better ways of

preparing students for careers in health

care and biomedical science,” says David

Muller, MD, Dean for Medical Education,

Professor of Medical Education, and

Professor of Medicine. His perspective is

shared by leaders across the institution.

“We must think differently,” says John

Morrison, PhD, Dean of Basic Sciences

and the Graduate School of Biomedical

Sciences, and Willard T.C. Johnson

Professor of Geriatrics and Adult

Development in the Neurobiology of

Aging. “We cannot and will not sacrifice

scientific rigor. At the same time, we

must find ways to translate science into

the realm of public policy and public

health, industry, advocacy, and even

venture capital,” he says. “We have an

obligation to lead.”

Icahn School leaders and faculty

are working with great urgency and

creativity to ensure that graduates of our

educational and training programs will

be the researchers and clinicians who

will revolutionize biomedical knowledge

and health care practice and policy in the

21st century.

Beginning in the 2013-2014 academic year,

Mount Sinai will recruit up to half of its

incoming classes from applicants who will not

be required to complete traditional pre-medical

science requirements or to take the Medical

College Admissions Test (MCAT). A quarter

century’s experience with the Humanities

and Medicine Program (HuMed), our “early

assurance” alternative to the traditional

pre-medical track, has shown that students

who did not pursue traditional pre-med

science preparation perform as well as their

peers in medical school.

The new program, called FlexMed, will

recruit students in their sophomore year

of college. These students may pursue any

major of their choosing and, if admitted, will

be expected to pursue that area of academic

interest to its fullest extent, driven more by

passion and intellectual curiosity than by

pre-determined medical school requirements.

Admitted students must maintain a 3.5 grade

point average (GPA) and complete a senior

thesis or the equivalent. They will be required

to take courses that are far more relevant

to the practice of medicine and biomedical

science, including subjects such as health

policy, bioethics, and statistics. Students will

be strongly encouraged to gain proficiency

in Mandarin Chinese or Spanish and to take a

year off between college and medical school

to volunteer or engage in scholarly or profes-

sional pursuits. Those who have not taken

advanced science classes as undergraduates

will be required to participate in a six-week

summer enrichment program at Mount Sinai

prior to their first year at Icahn.

“We believe this program can dramatically

expand the educational, cultural, and socio-

economic diversity of entering classes and

our health care workforce,” says Dean Muller.

“By eliminating MCAT use, outdated require-

ments, and ‘premed syndrome,’ we aim to

select students who are self-directed, who

will pursue independent scholarship, and

who will be lifelong learners.”

The FlexMed program will enable talented

students who are passionate about becoming

physicians, yet who want to focus on

non-traditional disciplines as undergraduates,

to take advantage of a Mount Sinai education.

“A student who studies theater arts, interna-

tional affairs, mathematics, or engineering,

rather than spending four years memorizing

facts for the MCAT, will be just as well equipped

as a student who has spent most of her under-

graduate career studying chemistry or biology,”

says Dean Muller. “We’re uncoupling pre-med

preparation from the MCAT and developing

more relevant criteria for admission.”

“ Our times require the

commitment and courage to

pursue better ways of preparing

students for careers in health

care and biomedical science.”

– Dean David Muller

an alternative to traditional Pre-Med PreparationFLEXMED

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“We must transform basic science education

and research to reflect what the 21st century

will look like,” says Ross Cagan, PhD, Associate

Dean of the Graduate School of Biomedical

Sciences, Professor of Developmental and

Regenerative Biology, Professor of Oncological

Sciences, and Professor of Ophthalmology,

“We’ve got to step out into the real world.

Scientists must know how to apply what

they’ve learned.”

At Mount Sinai, this means training that can

lead to innovative thinking, awareness of the

options for scientific careers outside of the

traditional academic laboratory environment—

industry, public health, advocacy, and

business, among other endeavors—and a

focus on translating scientific knowledge

rapidly into effective treatments for patients.

“We may be one of the only schools in the

country educating basic biomedical scientists

to write business plans, explain their work to

non-scientists, contribute in specific ways

to public policy decisions, or pitch highly

promising discoveries to potential investors,”

says Dean Morrison.

The PhD program offers students an

opportunity to pursue eight unique multi-

disciplinary training areas (MTAs), soon to be

joined by a ninth: Design, Technology, and

Entrepreneurship. New, innovative offerings

include Translating Science and Translating

Neuroscience, two courses which focus on

translational research (“bench to bedside”

approaches) and expose young scientists to

clinicians and patients, as well as to experts

in other professions (foundations, private

firms, community leaders, financial profes-

sionals, and practicing physicians); Becoming

a Professional Scientist, training in organi-

zational skills, financial planning, media

relations, and related areas to enable scientists

to optimize the value of their work outside of

the lab; a genome-sequencing course through

the Department of Genetics and Genomic

Sciences for PhD and MD students as well as

students in the Masters in Genetic Counseling

program—the first of its kind in the country—

in which students can opt to sequence their

own genomes; the QED Project, a course that

implements engineering and design school

models of team-based, problem-solving

learning in which students develop prototypes

of innovative technologies to solve real-world

problems [see page 32]; and the 4D (Discover,

Design, Develop, Deliver) Technology

Development Program, a similar educational

opportunity for faculty, that will lead to pilot

funding for the most promising projects.

“This is a moment of great opportunity for

young scientists,” says Dean Morrison. “We

have a duty to refrain from insularity, to not

only push scientific discovery forward, but

also to reach out and educate the community

and disseminate science information and

knowledge more broadly. Our work can

impact and benefit Wall Street, the pharma-

ceutical industry, public policy, and patients’

lives, and that, of course, is our most pressing

concern. Ultimately, innovation must result in

real change for patients.”

Real-world SmartsNEW CURRICULA IN THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF BIOMEDICAL SCIENCES

“ We’ve got to step out into the real world. Scientists must know how to apply what they’ve learned.”– Associate Dean Ross Cagan

LEXICON

Disruptive innovation: any technology, business strategy, or scientific breakthrough that creates an entirely new market and renders the previous paradigm obsolete.

31

In the first year of this pioneering course,

students in the Graduate School of Biomedical

Sciences—taught by Geoffrey Smith—worked

in teams to develop innovative solutions to

problems they identified. How did it work?

Five of them tell us below.

Matthew: Our team thought deeply about

how non-scientists can take advantage

of knowledge that scientists possess. We

created an app called PharmaGnome

to help consumers who’ve had their

genomes sequenced—which sooner or

later many people will do—to find out how

non-prescription medications may affect

them, given their unique genetic make-up.

Mount Sinai is a place where students are

encouraged to challenge conventional

thinking and dogma. And that’s my goal. I

want to be an investigator who knows how

to create something attractive, accurate, and

useful that contributes to people’s lives.

Sebastian: I want to do something I’m

passionate about that gives something back.

That’s the biggest reward. So learning how

to develop new tools to make the commu-

nication of science engaging and compre-

hensible was a great opportunity. There’s

a huge need to make science more acces-

sible. Our team created a suite of dynamic

digital materials to explain complex scientific

information in a way that is compelling and

exciting, including an online textbook and

e-learning tools with really cool graphics. Our

product was designed for scientist-to-scientist

communication, as well as to enhance science

literacy for the public.

Neil: Young investigators need to know

what’s been published in their field over the

last thirty or forty years. But the basic resource,

Pub Med (the web site that aggregates research

publications), which gets 80 million hits a

month, has a very inefficient interface and

it’s extremely time-consuming to locate the

relevant articles. The team I was on designed

a simple Web interface so that scientists

can access information more quickly and

efficiently. One key aspect of our project—our

customer is our QED class. So our classmates

essentially served as a mini clinical trial.

Mount Sinai leaders agree: Innovation in

the 21st century will require cross-disciplinary

partnerships. And our students uniformly

express their appreciation for an environment

that supports and encourages collabo-

ration. “The opportunities to collaborate are

great,” says Lauren Peters, a PhD student in

immunology. “Our graduate school is unique

in this regard and it was one of the reasons I

chose Mount Sinai.”

Given the specificity of scientific specialties

(from neuroscience, to immunology, to cancer

biology) and the complexity of affiliated

fields (bioinformatics and the analysis of “big

data,” for example), scientists and clinicians

from multiple disciplines and specialties

must work together to identify problems

and design solutions. To foster cross-disci-

plinary work, Mount Sinai has established

the Center for Technology, Innovation, and

Entrepreneurship (cTIE) to bring together

research, education, and training at the inter-

section of basic science discovery and applied

science implementation.

cTIE director Geoffrey Smith, Professor,

Department of Health Evidence and Policy,

says, “Technology is not just about devices. It’s

really a process of taking inputs—information,

capital, labor, materials—and creating higher

value out of them. To develop new technol-

ogies to treat unmet clinical needs, we need to

bring these elements together, and scientists

need to be engaged at all levels in order to

effectively bring their discoveries to market.”

cTIE educational programs will focus on

teaching processes for reliably producing

creative solutions to problems in biology

and medicine. “Mount Sinai is the ideal place

for this Center,” says Smith, who has a law

degree from the University of Pennsylvania,

is a co-founder and partner in a local venture

capital firm, and serves as adjunct faculty at

Rockefeller University’s Center for Clinical

and Translational Science. “Mount Sinai has

focused on translational research, applying

scientific knowledge to real-world outcomes.

Mount Sinai’s leaders understand that to

innovate, we have to disrupt traditional

paradigms and train our students differently.

And that’s what we’re doing. ”

applying Scientific discoveriesTHE CENTER FOR TECHNOLOGY, INNOVATION, AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP (cTIE)

the Qed ProjectIDEAS—INNOVATION—IMPLEMENTATION

At the end of the semester, students in the QED Project present their work to their peers and visiting corporate leaders.

32

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Mission driven“ Our educational mission is to graduate

physicians and scientists prepared to enter

society as informed advocates and activists,

able to advance clinical care and science,

and capable of promoting change.”

–David Muller, Dean for Medical Education

“Our imperative was to create a curriculum

aligned with our mission and committed

to and invested in graduating physicians

who will be nimble, adaptable, resourceful,

innovative, and collaborative. These are the

skills and attitudes physicians and scientists

need to address the incredibly complex health

care challenges we will face in the twenty-

first century,” says Reena Karani, MD, MHPE,

Associate Dean for Undergraduate Medical

Education and Curricular Affairs.

The new curriculum is the result of a

rigorous and thoughtful process involving

Icahn School of Medicine leaders, faculty,

students, and staff. The curriculum team

reviewed national guidelines and accredi-

tation mandates, best practices from across the

country, and Mount Sinai student outcomes,

among other data and materials, and met

with thought leaders from across the insti-

tution. Their research and analysis led to the

creation of 11 guiding principles (including

integration of the biological and social deter-

minants of health, disease, and treatment; and

commitment to the dignity of patients, health

advocacy, and social responsibility), which, in

turn, led to the development of 80 measurable

competencies in four core competency

domains constituting the knowledge, skills,

and attitudes expected of all graduates.

The new curriculum, to be implemented

this fall, builds on the School’s strengths

articulated as four central curricular themes—

research and discovery, service learning,

global health, and frontiers in science—and

incorporates significant innovations in each

year of the four-year program. “Two funda-

mental goals drove the design of the new

curriculum: to enhance what we excel in

and what makes Mount Sinai unique, and to

provide an education on the leading edge of

science,” says Associate Dean Karani.

Innovative opportunities begin in the first

year with incorporation of Mount Sinai’s

pioneering Longitudinal Clinical Experience,

which gives students the earliest and most

intense exposure to patients of any medical

school in New York City, into Art and Science

of Medicine, a two-year integrated course that

combines study with direct patient contact and

care. From the very first days of their medical

education, Mount Sinai students interact with

patients in some of the nation’s most diverse

and underserved neighborhoods, an approach

that is consistent with the School’s long history

of emphasis on the vulnerability of patients,

urban primary care, and reflective practice.

“We’re also formalizing our approach to

research training and scholarship,” says

Associate Dean Karani. “We want to be sure

that our students have the skills to design and

conduct leading-edge biomedical research.”

All MD students will be required to complete a

research project by graduation.

“How will you be a leader?” asks Associate

Dean Karani. “Our new curriculum has been

designed to ensure that students understand

the complex and critical relationships among

scientific knowledge, patient care, biomedical

research, human rights, public health, and

advocacy.”

THE STUDENTS

Lauren Peters Phd student; MS in biotechnology, columbia university

Matthew Pendleton Phd student; MS in pharmacology, university of Minnesota

Neil Dawhan Phd student, MS in molecular biology/genetics, columbia university

Juliet Morrison Post-doc, Microbiology; Phd in microbiology, columbia university

Sebastian Aguirre Post-doc, Microbiology; Phd in biotech, universidad de Buenos aires, argentina

Lauren: We were presented with an

entire toolkit. We learned how to evaluate

an idea, develop strategies for execution,

how to interact with investors, how to

network to promote the idea, how to

maintain optionality, and how to think

through the challenges and opportunities.

There’s so much to consider: marketability,

regulations, usability, framing the value

proposition to differentiate the product,

profitability. I have degrees in economics

and in biotech. But, immunology is

what fascinates me. QED has helped me

understand how I can bridge my business

experience and scientific knowledge to

achieve something meaningful in the field

of immunology.

Juliet: I am starting a job at the

University of Washington in Seattle this

summer in a computational biology

department. Eventually, I would like to work

in an academic lab and also to develop a

start-up company so that I can move my

discoveries quickly from the lab to the

clinic. This class has been enormously

helpful. I’ve never taken any other like it. I

always thought innovation was something

you just had to understand intuitively—but

QED showed me that a class can teach

the strategies, tactics, and techniques to

become an innovative thinker.

“ Mount Sinai’s leaders

understand that to innovate,

we have to disrupt traditional

paradigms and train our students

differently. And that’s what we’re

doing.”

– Geoffrey Smith, JD

NEW CURRICULAR ADDITIONS INCLUDE:

• InFocus: total immersion experiences during

each year (no other classes or activities are

scheduled) focused on critical themes in

science and medicine. Key topics include

research skills and scholarly dissemination,

global health, service learning, patient safety

and quality, health policy and delivery,

innovation, the business and economics of

medicine, and leadership training.

• Frontiers in Science: every course across the

curriculum includes a Frontiers in Science

component. a Mount Sinai leader in transla-

tional research will serve as a guest presenter

to educate students about the relationship

between scientific knowledge and the

potential for specific patient outcomes.

• FlexTime: one half-day every week for the

first two years is protected time, devoted

to self-directed learning, discovery, and

leadership opportunities.

33

If I were to look for where innovation is

going to happen in health care delivery, it’s

probably going to be where you want to be able

to deliver the high quality care

at a much lower cost.

Mount Sinai: You’ve worked with data all your professional life. Have you lost your capacity to be surprised?Jeff Hammerbacher: That’s a very good question. I’m still surprised by things, but it is kind of like a slow motion surprise. There are a lot of things that I suspect can be done with data and they get uncovered gradually. When you are a child and you read popular books on science, you get the sense that just like out of nowhere, something gets created. But it’s really hard to pull one thing out of your hat and say, “Hey look what I found!” On the other hand, there are things that I thought that we would be able to do, but actually can’t do; I would say that those are far most frequent than the upside surprises.

MS: This fall you told the SINAInnovations audience, “Failure hurts more here.”JH: A lot of the skills and the mindset that I’ve built up for problem-solving came out of my experiences in the consumer Web and enterprise software domain, where the problems are not really life or death…

MS: Well, maybe they are to teenagers.JH: That’s true—that’s actually a fairly profound statement: bullying and suicide, these are real life or death problems that happen on some consumer Web properties. But I will say that life and death will be more present in my work here.

MS: What will your Mount Sinai work entail?JH: I’m working on a program to take cancer patients who have exhausted their treatment options, and see if we can use some data analysis to emerge some potential treatment options for them. As soon as you have someone in front of you whose life depends on your work, you really can’t think about, say, what’s neat about the theoretical underpinnings. You have to focus on actually building something that will help this person.

MS: Is that one of the draws that working for Mount Sinai has for you? JH: I think the most exciting thing about Mount Sinai for me is that having that life and death problem in front of you creates a real sense of presence and immediacy and constraints.

MS: How important is the collaboration you will experience at Mount Sinai? JH: Ideas never occur in isolation, and even if they were to occur that way, they would likely not have a lot of relevance to most people. It is a false dichotomy to say that there are two ways innovation

happens: one is the loner off in the woods, and the other is collaboration. Even that loner off in the woods has a set of ideas, a set of mental constructs built through some form of collaboration, such as reading books. So you may be innovating alone in the woods, but you are not as alone as you think.

MS: How about teams working in isolation? In the medical field, teams in different places are often tackling the same problems.JH: Yes—what happens when multiple groups of people work on the same problem in isolation, and then seeing how different solutions arise? During the Cold War there was an interesting pseudo-experiment, when Russian scientists worked on advancing math in one direction, and American scientists worked on advancing math in another direction, and it was fascinating when things started to come together. Integration plays a very large role; you can see how the ideas evolve differently. There is definitely value in allowing groups to pursue different paths to solutions for the same problem, but the most interesting things happen when you bring them together. “What did they do differently?” “Where did we go faster?” A lot of innovation happens because of the constraints imposed, not because the engine within an innova-tor’s head is faster or more capable, or because they combine sets of ideas with more volatility.

MS: Constraints are good?JH: Constraints are important. Google was able to invent an entirely new infrastructure for doing science because they were faced with a constraint of having incredibly cheap servers. This is pretty exciting for the medical domain as well: If I were to look for where innovation is going to happen in health care delivery, it’s probably going to be where you want to be able to deliver the high quality care at a much lower cost—for instance, places like India and China, where they want to deliver the same standard of care at a very high volume at a much lower cost.

Jeff Hammerbacher, a pioneer shaper of Facebook and the founder of Cloudera, joined the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai faculty. He will join the Icahn Institute for Genomics and Multiscale Biology to apply his expertise in working with data to the domain of medicine.

SUR

PR

ISE

PHOTOGRAPHY BY

AnDREW LICHTEnSTEIn

35

TEAM PLAYTEAM PLAYSETTing ThE bAr The Mount Sinai Hospital

“The integration of an honor roll hospital with a

top 20 medical school that we have at Mount Sinai

is something that is relatively unique,” says David

Reich, MD, President of The Mount Sinai Hospital

and Professor and Chair of the Department of

Anesthesiology. “This means we can implement

innovative approaches more organically than other

institutions can. But with that also comes a responsi-

bility as leaders in both hospital care and in academic

medicine to achieve greater things than stand-alone

hospitals or medical schools are able to do in isolation.”

Under Dr. Reich’s leadership, The Mount Sinai

Hospital is developing a wide range of innovative health

care delivery programs aimed at applying Mount Sinai’s

intellectual and technological resources to transform

standards of care.

“We’ve found that early intervention is a critical focal

point in improving patient care,” Dr. Reich says. “Indeed,

early intervention is more than a goal; it’s a strategy.

Many programs currently underway at Mount Sinai are

investigating opportunities for proactive interventions

for at-risk patients.”

One such research project, led by Dr. Reich, sends

alerts to anesthesia providers through Epic, Mount

Sinai’s state-of-the art electronic medical records

system, when surgery patients under general anesthesia

have mildly low blood pressure at a phase when there

is relatively deep anesthesia; even though neither

condition is alarming by itself, retrospective data have

shown that the combination is associated with worse

outcomes for patients. Tracking these alerts, researchers

can test their effectiveness; their hypothesis is that

prompting anesthesia providers to alter anesthesia

levels and blood pressure will lead to better patient

outcomes.

Dr. Reich is also a sponsor of TeamSTEPPS—an

innovative, evidence-based training program developed

by the Department of Defense’s Patient Safety Program

By Sara DanielS

big, game-changing events are more than an “aha” moment, more than the images we conjure up when we envision “innovation”: laboratory scientists discovering a new vaccine; a surgeon applying life-changing techniques for the first time; patients adapting to devices that return function to missing limbs.

Behind these big moments are the equally innovative efforts

of background experts and the infrastructure that supports such

progress. Technology and rigorous data analysis are the tools of

change in 21st century health care delivery, and it takes teamwork

to understand how these tools work and to wield them with

creativity and precision.

Here are three Mount

Sinai teams that are

innovating in ways you

may never hear about,

advancing the health

of our patients while

improving efficiency

and directing resources

more effectively to

enhance the quality

of care we deliver.

D. rEich

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in collaboration with the US Department of Health and

Human Services’ Agency for Healthcare Research and

Quality. TeamSTEPPS uses teamwork as a strategic

tool for improving patient safety and quality of care.

The program, first launched in the Department of

Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Science and

now used throughout Mount Sinai’s operating rooms,

focuses on building better communication among all

members of a care or surgical team, changing team

dynamics, and leveraging multidisciplinary expertise

for a positive effect on patient care.

“Uneven power structures in a team can prevent a

person at a lower level of authority from speaking up

when he or she thinks something is not going in the

right direction,” says Dr. Reich. “What we’re trying to

do with TeamSTEPPS and projects like it is level the

playing field so that every member of the team feels

empowered to speak up for patient safety and best

practices in the delivery of care.”

cLoSing ThE gAPSMount Sinai Care

“We think the future of medicine is transitioning

toward a new model, in which a physician works

in a team setting to take care of a population of

patients,” says Mark Callahan, MD, Chief Executive

Officer of Mount Sinai Care, LLC, Mount Sinai’s new

Accountable Care Organization (ACO). Mount Sinai

Care is charged with providing integrated care and

meeting new quality benchmarks for more than

20,000 Medicare patients throughout the New York

metropolitan area—and, once again, teamwork is key.

The ACO, one of only

ten such organizations

in New York State and

among the few based

in an academic medical

center, is building

innovative care teams

and closing the gaps in

patient care that can lead to complications and unnec-

essary hospital readmissions, especially in patients

with chronic illnesses like diabetes and heart disease.

The Mount Sinai Care team includes care coordinators

who work with doctors, nursing staff, and patients to

facilitate referrals and appointments, ensure patients

get the proper medications, track follow-up proce-

dures like mammograms and colonoscopies, navigate

health insurance issues, and perform other critical

tasks that physicians lack the time and resources to

do. Providing these vital support services means that

Mount Sinai Care can be an active partner in helping

patients to manage their

illnesses.

Mount Sinai Care has

also launched several

innovative electronic

information tools that

can prevent unnecessary

events. For example, the

ACO uses a predictive

mathematical model—

developed by Mount

Sinai’s Preventable

Admissions Care Team

(PACT) and incorporated

into Epic—to identify the

patients most at risk for

hospital readmissions.

This allows care teams to

intervene with appropriate

social and medical support

to try to keep those high-risk patients healthy.

The immediate impact of these interventions is better

care coordination and more resources allocated to the

care team to help patients stay healthy. Over time, the

ACO’s focus on quality and coordination of care is

expected to reduce unnecessary admissions and lower

health care expenses.

“A lot of what we spend money on in health care isn’t

necessarily good for the patient,” Dr. Callahan points

out. “Let’s say a patient’s diabetes isn’t well controlled

and he ends up in the hospital with kidney failure and

needs dialysis. That’s not good for the patient and it’s not

good from a cost point of view. Our focus is preventing

disease and then managing chronic illnesses to reduce

their complications. In some cases that requires more

resources, used differently. Instead of putting people in

the hospital and treating

them for advanced illness,

we’d rather put resources in

the outpatient setting and

prevent advanced illness

from developing.”

Mount Sinai has gone

one step further by applying

the same innovative tools to its Medicaid population

through the Patient-Centered Medical Home initiative.

Additional care coordinators and extra diabetes resources

will help address the unique health care needs of

these patients.

“Mount Sinai is very far ahead of the curve on this,” says

Dr. Callahan. “By putting the teams and IT resources into

an ACO model now, when a lot of other academic medical

centers decided not to do it, we’re building the experience,

the workflows, the care patterns, and the information tools

we need to be successful as health care reform comes

down the pike.”

LEXICON

Transparency:a commitment to sharing information and encouraging communication as a way to bring teams closer together.

“ We think the future of medicine is transitioning toward a new model, in which a physician works in a team setting to take care of a population of patients.”

M. cALLAhAn

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TrAnSLATing DATA inTo cArEHealth Evidence and Policy

Mount Sinai’s ambitious clinical

research enterprise is also driving

new evidence-based innovations in

delivery of care, according to Annetine

Gelijns, PhD, Chair of the Department of

Health Evidence and Policy. Within the

Department, the International Center

for Health Outcomes and Innovation

Research and the Center for Biostatistics

enable clinical and translational research

partners throughout the institution to

design and analyze innovative trials.

“The research and development

process doesn’t end when a new

intervention is introduced into practice

because the criteria change: how we

select eligible patients, and how we

embed clinical management strategies,”

Dr. Gelijns says. “It’s a moving target and

that’s why it’s becoming increasingly

important to conduct comparative effec-

tiveness research after a new intervention

has been introduced into widespread

clinical practice.”

The research that Dr. Gelijns and her team conduct

aims to fill in some of the gaps of medical knowledge

in treating patients. Typically, there are two short-term

evaluations, conducted in limited patient populations

over a relatively brief period: exploratory clinical trials,

evaluating whether an intervention (a new diagnostic,

drug, device, or procedure) is safe and effective, and

confirmatory trials, which are regulated by the FDA

and attempt to validate the safety and effectiveness

of an intervention for a

particular population of

patients—but long-term

outcomes remain

unstudied.

Dr. Gelijn’s area

bridges that gap by

addressing the whole

spectrum of translational research, from first-in-

human trials to large-scale trials and analysis of clinical

data sets, to see how interventions perform over time.

Her team also compares them to other types of inter-

ventions—say, a beta blocker versus surgery—to assess

cost-effectiveness and key outcomes such as survival

and quality of life. That information is then fed back

into the clinical and research enterprises, enabling

clinician-scientists and manufacturers to make

important improvements.

The outcomes can be dramatic—and surprising.

Take the evolution of the Left Ventricular Assist

Device (LVAD), a mechanical pump designed to help

keep patients with advanced heart failure alive while

awaiting transplantation. Dr. Gelijns’ team explored

the possibility of using these devices in patients

ineligible for transplantation—which turned out to

double survival rates in these patients compared with

traditional medical management of their condition. But

it was also prohibitively expensive—$600,000 for each

additional year of survival—and produced such adverse

effects as infections, bleeding, and neurological events.

“Clinicians and engineers used the results of that

trial to develop improved devices that minimized

risks and costs,” says Dr. Gelijns. “As a result, we’re

now involved in trials evaluating novel LVADs, which

are much smaller, with fewer adverse events, and the

cost of intervention has dropped to $100,000 for each

additional year of life.”

The Department’s institution-wide mission includes

many more areas of concentration, including helping

to lead a community-based Transitions of Care

program, supported by a significant Medicare grant.

The program tests models for improving care transi-

tions from hospitals to other outpatient settings,

with the goal of reducing hospital readmissions for

Medicare patients by 20 percent over five years.

Fortunately, says Alan Moskowitz, PhD, Vice Chair

of the Department of Health Evidence and Policy,

Mount Sinai was ahead of the game in launching such

a program, thanks to its PACT program, originally

developed to reduce readmissions among patients

with heart failure.

“We took that program and modified it to suit a

broader population, and we reviewed re-hospitalization

patterns at Mount Sinai to create a statistical model that

identified risk factors for readmission—the basis for a

profile of high-risk patients to target with the program.”

The result? The

Community Preventable

Admissions Care Team

(CPACT), which partners

with the Institute for

Family Health, a large,

community-based

and independently run

family practice headed by Neil Calman, MD, Professor

and Chair of Mount Sinai’s Department of Family

Medicine and Community Health.

“Mount Sinai subscribes to the idea that you have

to mine the data at your own institution to identify

problems and monitor solutions to see if they’re really

working,” Dr. Moskowitz says. “That philosophy speaks

to the innovation that’s going on at Mount Sinai

irrespective of what funding opportunities exist.”

“ Mount Sinai subscribes to the idea that you have to mine the data at your own institution to identify problems and monitor solutions to see if they’re really working.”

A. gELijnS

03

LEXICON

adjacenT possible: a finite amount of first-order combinations available from a given starting point that, together, lead to an almost infinite amount of further possibilities. as, “Take a few primordial molecules, combine them, and the adjacent possible leads to the building blocks of life; take the building blocks of life, combine them, and the adjacent possible leads to simple one-cell organisms; take a few one-cell organisms, combine them, and the adjacent possible leads to every species we see today.”

38

Mount Sinai Science & Medicine recently sat down with a trio of Mount Sinai faculty whose work involves massive amounts of information to see how they are collaborating to optimize the impact of data; we began by asking each doctor to talk a bit about what he does.

Andrew KASArSKiS: The Icahn Institute

for Genomics and Multiscale Biology

is focused on bringing to Mount Sinai

a degree of comfort with high dimen-

sional data analysis and genomics

technologies. We’re working in a team

fashion with colleagues from Erwin’s

Institute of Personalized Medicine, Carlos’s

team in Pathology, and other depart-

ments to address large-scale interdisci-

plinary problems that have a technical

component where the different types of

expertise could be applied. We have an

ambition to make genomic medicine a

pervasive influence in the work we do at

Sinai, both clinically and in research. That

does not happen in isolation: you need

to be pretty good at computation as well

as genomics, and that is where we have

been putting a lot of effort collectively

over time.

erwin Bottinger: Our model going

forward towards precision and person-

alized medicine is like a three-legged

stool: We have to bring together

people like you, Andrew, who generate

new hypotheses and ideas, such as in

genomics and multiscale biology and the

Department of Genetics; people—like

Carlos—who are the experts in how to

diagnose and how to run molecular

diagnostic tests; and people who think

deeply about how to bring the infor-

mation back to patient care, back to

bedside, which is closer to my role. Taking

information from a study to a clinical care

context, where it is integrated into the

clinical work flow and allows our practi-

tioners to deliver optimal care, is critical:

We need to bring the newest discoveries

in genomics, in molecular diagnostics

directly to the fingertips of our physicians.

That is what we see as our primary role in

the Institute for Personalized Medicine.

We are also informing Mount Sinai

patients about a groundbreaking research

enterprise in which they can participate,

which we call the Clinical Care Cohort for

Personalized Medicine. Patients consent

to make all their clinical information

available for research, and donate a

tube of blood and some other samples

which we can test for genetic variance,

conduct sequencing, examine biomarker

profiles, and then allow our researchers

to bring together the molecular data with

the clinical data. We have enrolled over

25,000 patients, but our goal is more

ambitious: to expand to 100,000 patients

overall. We are truly a digital health care

system, which allows us to make the link

between the big data capabilities that are

presented in genomics and multiscale

biology, and the actual clinical records; we

extract information for research, and then

also return information into the electronic

health record for the purpose of testing

new methods of guiding clinical care.

CArloS Cordon-CArdo: Our

Department of Pathology is the second

largest in volume in the country,

performing nearly 23,000 tests every day,

including blood chemistries, specimen

analyses, biopsies, and autopsies.

dr. KASArSKiS: So 23,000 tests today?

That’s a hard act to follow, Carlos.

dr. Cordon-CArdo: Yes, can you believe

it?! But what matters so much here—

unlike many other institutions where

silos are created—is that Mount Sinai

has a culture of breaking silos, and this is

what leads to innovations. For example,

for cancer patients we are now offering

panels that include the analysis of body

fluids, from blood to urine, and tissue

studies that integrate biomarkers and

molecular genetics, such as mutational

analysis, along with critical information

from the patient’s family history and

clinical setting. This will produce a

comprehensive report that will allow

better navigation for managing the case.

Our patients will definitely receive a very

personalized treatment, guided by clinical

and molecular knowledge. Our goal is

to translate data into knowledge, and

to manage this knowledge to give each

patient a better chance

of being cured, while offering

a superior quality of life.

erwin P. Bottinger, Md

• Director, The Charles Bronfman Institute for Personalized Medicine

• Professor, Medicine, Nephrology

• Professor, Pharmacology and Systems Therapeutics

Carlos Cordon-Cardo, Md, Phd

• Professor and Chair, Department of Pathology

• Professor, Oncological Sciences

• Professor, Genetics and Genomic Sciences

Andrew Kasarskis, Phd

• Vice Chair, Department of Genetics and Genomic Sciences

• Co-Director, Icahn Institute for Genomics and Multiscale Biology

• Associate Professor, Genetics and Genomic Sciences

Dial guePArtiCiPAntS

the innovative

promise of “Big data” means that we know more about patients and illnesses

than ever before. But how do we integrate this knowledge into a clinical care plan and

come up with equally innovative changes in

patient lives?

39

dr. KASArSKiS: It is so interesting the way

all these results, all these tests get captured

in a way that allows us to exploit the

information using the clinical cohort that

Erwin has put together, and the electronic

medical records system. It is really quite

exciting and it is one of my favorite things

going on around here. And some of the

most interesting work—where the rubber

meets the road—is in your work, Erwin, to

actually educate the general practitioners

and other Sinai physicians as to what needs

to happen when they encounter patients

whose genetic information is relevant to

their care—the IPM Pharmacogenetics

project, for example, that is using your

CLIPMERGE technology platform.

dr. Bottinger: Yes, this is a huge step

forward to run big programs where we

examine the real barriers impeding the

widespread introduction of genomic

medicine in basic clinical practices. Since

you mention our CLIPMERGE platform

(which stands for Clinical Implementation

of Personalized Medicine in Electronic

Health Records and Genomics), we believe

it could provide in essence a natural

conduit for colleagues in Pathology to

deliver results to patients, as they are the

experts in turning out high quality genomic

and molecular diagnostic results—results

that come from molecular pathology

laboratories or molecular diagnostics

laboratories, that can be plucked directly

into our CLIPMERGE platform, where

genomic results are translated into a

language that the physician can under-

stand and convey to the patient.

dr. Cordon-CArdo: In fact, this is

going to open the door for a new kind of

medicine, in which being more precise

will allow us to render superior services to

the patient, and as we discussed, a better

chance of being cured. In this context, we

also hope to offer improved quality of life

based on the ability to take this evidence-

based scientific approach.

dr. KASArSKiS: I do not know how many

other institutions out there have a vice

chair of pathology who actually has a

physics PhD, focused on data analytics! It

is very nice to have strong partners across

the institution who are capturing rich

information on patients, and then actually

building a constructive, computationally

and statistically rigorous model of what

we have learned about those patients—

the Bio Bank—that can then be distilled

down to actionable infor-

mation in any given patient’s

case. And perhaps change

the course of care. It is an

empowering thing, contem-

plating what the actual

support system of a medical

decision would be based

on: not just HPA1C blood

pressure, LDL cholesterol,

HGL cholesterol and so forth,

but also potentially more

information-rich things. At

the Icahn Institute, we focus

on integrating the full range

of molecular measures you can get from

DNA and RNA sequencing and other high

information content technologies with

the longitudinal clinical information in our

patients’ electronic medical record, to

better understand disease in general and

better manage the well-being of individual

patients.

dr. Cordon-CArdo: The wave of

“innovation” that Mount Sinai is leading

extends to several critical areas, including

technology. Some technologies—like

microscopes—have been quite similar

for the past two hundred years. So one

of the areas we are further developing is

optical engineering; we have attracted

faculty coming from the fields of physics

and engineering who are assembling

microscopes that use liquid crystal lenses,

allowing us to use the tissue as the ultimate

microchip. In addition, we are expanding

our armamentarium in pathology

to add to our diagnostics tools

a series of novel predictive

tools, so we can more

precisely ascertain

what may happen to

a patient based on

the knowledge we

obtain by bringing

together his or her

specific genotypes

and phenotypes,

along with clinical

variables in order to

better assess clinical outcome. This can

also help us select treatments that may be

more efficacious and cost-effective.

The reality is that the medical practice of

today while facing chronic diseases, such

as cancer, offers patients periods of health

which are more and more prolonged,

along with a better quality of life—but in

too many situations the disease comes

back. It does so because we are treating

the symptoms, the by-products of the

disease, such as the cellular

growth in cancer, but not

necessarily the disease itself.

Why is this? Because we

do not know the cause. We

do not know where cancer

starts. We do not know where

hypertension starts. Our

hypothesis is that by assem-

bling and implementing a

multidimensional approach,

pathologists, geneticists,

clinicians, and basic scien-

tists—working together and

using innovative tools—may

be able to drill down to find, in at least

some diseases, the causation. We will then

be armed to move forward and design

effective, individualized, personalized treat-

ments, targeting that very specific element.

It will be wonderful.

dr. Bottinger: Because we’re located at

a medical center in northern Manhattan,

serving diverse communities throughout

the region, we have a particular responsi-

bility to make genomic medicine a reality

for all of our patients irrespective of their

color. There is great concern that genomic

medicine will be a domain for a privileged

patient population, but, based on charac-

teristics of our diverse patient populations

and the diverse communities who come

for excellent health care, Mount Sinai has a

tremendous opportunity to seek innovative

ways to actually

CArloS Cordon-CArdo,

Md, Phd

erwin P. Bottinger,

Md

“our department of Pathology is

the second largest in volume in the

country, performing nearly 23,000 tests every day, including blood chemistries, specimen analyses,

biopsies, and autopsies.”

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bring genomic medicine to anybody that

receives care here regardless of color or

ethnic background. In fact, this is a huge

opportunity where together we can create

new paradigms for many other large

cosmopolitan, urban areas and the health

care practiced there in the future.

dr. KASArSKiS: That’s the difficulty: trying

to calibrate any new technology for gener-

ating molecular information is dependent

on what is “normal.” “Normal” for a

group of Caucasian people of Northern

European ancestry—such as families

from Utah, which was how a large chunk

of the genetic research was done in the

past—does not necessarily translate very

well to our patient population out in, say,

Queens. Our patient population here has

certainly proven to be interested in genetic

information. They want to understand and

are willing to participate in research when

approached which gives us an ability to

actually start to develop technologies for

our patient population in a way that reflects

their characteristics and redefines “normal.”

Be it a fancy new imaging technology,

a fancy new molecular technology, one

thing is for sure: there is a huge amount of

innovation going on with new techniques

to generate data on biological systems, and

we are working to keep pace with that in

terms of how to integrate that information

and model it. But none of that

gets you anywhere unless you

actually have good samples that

are linked to rich history about

the individuals from whom the

samples have come to us.

dr. Cordon-CArdo: Senior

leadership at Mount Sinai has

a unified vision, supports our

efforts, and is quite unaffected

by academic politics. I have

been able to recruit over

twenty-five faculty members in

the past two years, from basic

to translational scientists, from

mathematicians to clinicians.

We have also renovated major

service laboratory areas and brought in

state-of-the-art equipment. Another

major asset here is our outstanding clinical

colleagues. The reputation that we have in

the medical community comes from great

clinicians who put so much detail into

their work; it is so granular that together

with the new innovations in the laboratory,

we can generate and implement a new

paradigm in patient management. We can

optimize outcomes by switching from

group management approaches that

stratify patients into disease categories

and apply therapies based on pre-deter-

mined protocols, to a patient-specific

approach that integrates unique clinical

and biological characteristics to predict

treatment efficacy and drug sensitivity.

dr. KASArSKiS: That has got to be good for

training as well.

dr. Cordon-CArdo: It is. Right now, we

have one department of medicine, one

department of surgery, but maybe one day

when we all have learned how to work

together and validate each other’s assays,

we may be able to integrate pathology,

genetics, and even radiology to form a

department of advanced diagnostics.

dr. KASArSKiS: We could call it the

department of diagnosis—and maybe the

department of prediction.

dr. Cordon-CArdo: We are in part

implementing it—many tangibles prove

that this is happening. We are designing

biomarker panels together, we are

implementing strategies that use superior

biological tools, and we are validating

each other constantly, learning together

for the good of the patient and our

community.

dr. Bottinger: I think,

Carlos, you a raise a very

critical point for genomic

medicine in clinical care:

the quality and excellence in

training, performance, and

practice of the clinical staff.

Over the last few years, we

have engaged very actively

with our clinical staff in

various practices about

delivering genomic medicine;

they are all highly motivated,

fascinated, and willing to

participate in the kind of

translational research required

to make genomic medicine

happen. Let us make no mistake, the time

is now and it is up to us, the genomic

scientists, the molecular pathologists, the

clinicians, the outcomes researchers to

demonstrate that all of this can improve

care, outcomes, the utilization of health

services, patients’ lives—and last but not

least, also reduce health care costs. Mount

Sinai is a unique place to actually make

first-in-class kinds of contributions. I am

certainly an optimist but I am confident

that we will be able, together, to demon-

strate that this is indeed the medicine of

the future. And we can do it.

dr. KASArSKiS: What is really interesting,

Erwin, is that when you are talking

about diagnosis and prevention,

you are also talking about

behavioral change. We all

know that behaviors are

hard to change. There

is a lot of applied

behavioral science

and human factor

engineering involved

in actually defining

risks, being sure that

we really believe the

risks, and that they are

accurately measured,

and then reflecting that

in a way that changes

behavior. But difficult as

this is, it is ultimately what

we want to do if our goal is to

focus our business on promoting

health as opposed to simply wishing

people Godspeed. But I believe there is

a lot to gain from addressing behavioral

change over the next decade or two.

dr. Cordon-CArdo: It is part of our

mission to pioneer change in health care

management. This will be achieved mainly

through more precise diagnosis, a better

selection of appropriate therapies, and an

enhanced understanding of the predictive

course of the disease.

dr. Bottinger: Carlos has provided,

I think, the key word: Prediction. For

hundreds of years, medical students have

been taught based on chief complaints:

A patient comes and says, “Something is

wrong, doctor”. We are at a very good spot

to transition to teaching medicine and

practicing medicine in the future around,

“What is the risk for you, our patient, that

we need to be careful about?” We can

devise particular plans to limit that

risk and keep you from ever

having a complaint. So

the curriculum will

change, and students

will be taught to

look at genetic

data, molecular

data, lifestyle

data, all the data

analyzed together

for a true prediction

of what is to come.

LEXICON

Big data:The practice of analyzing enormous sets of data, such as the human genome, with mathematical and computational techniques to find previously undis-covered patterns and connections.

Andrew KASArSKiS,

Phd

“there is a huge amount of

innovation going on with new

techniques to generate data on

biological systems, and we are

working to keep pace with that

in terms of how to integrate that information and

model it.”

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Here are the voices of a group of young game-

changers who are students in the Graduate School

of Biological Sciences, addressing what it means

to be innovative, how innovation applies to their

work, and why Mount Sinai inspires innovative thinking.

Arielle Klepper, MD/PhD 2016Expecting to defend her thesis in January, Ms. Klepper is investigating how the

Hepatitis C virus affects the liver—and how different forms of treatment affect

patient outcomes. She also plays a leading role in two Mount Sinai student/faculty

organizations that promote awareness and unity of underrepresented groups:

Women in Science and Medicine, and Students for Equal Opportunity in Science.

In order to innovate, you need to be able to maintain pathways, pipelines, and ways

to make sure everybody is in the fold and can succeed. Mount Sinai is growing

and expanding. The new Hess Center for Science and Medicine is a great example

of this. The face of Mount Sinai is also changing. Thus, having organizations such

as Women in Science and Medicine represents promoting equal opportunity on

multiple levels, like for women or for minorities. It really is timely and hopefully can

make an impact as the institution grows. It is important to develop those things to

ensure that the recruitment we are doing translates into improved representation

and success. And I think that ties in to the patient side, too—having a more diverse

population of physicians is obviously important to understanding your patients and

where they come from.

“ This is a wonderful time to be training young scientists. These students see the opportunities in front of them very clearly. They know that rigorous training in fundamental basic science is essential for them to be what they want to be. However, they also know that they can and should go beyond that wonderful moment of discovery, and bring their discovery to the rest of the world through innovation. They assume that their science will improve the lives of patients and they would not have it any other way.”

– Dean John H. Morrison

By Rhianna MoRRis

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Sam A. Golden, PhD 2014One of Mr. Golden’s major projects in the Department

of Neuroscience recently was published in the presti-

gious journal Nature Medicine: Following chronic

stress, robust restructuring of neurons can occur; his

work has been instrumental in illuminating one of the

mechanisms involved in the restructuring, offering the

potential for this mechanism to aid in the development

of targeted therapeutics for depression.

What is affecting the world we live in today? What

are the things in the news that make you either smile

or frown? The nice thing about being in the trans-

lational research environment of Mount Sinai is that

you can ask those larger questions, and then you can

find a clinical population to look at. You are given the

freedom to investigate your questions at a very deep

level. Innovation requires this process. It is having

those questions and wanting to follow through. You

know you have a difficult road ahead when you have

a question that you know is completely outside the

scope of anything anyone else is doing and still say,

“I’m going to spend a couple years working on this.”

It is a high risk situation. But you also know that if it’s

high risk, it could also be high reward.

Theodore Pak, MD/PhD 2020Mr. Pak is passionate about the intersection of medicine

and technology, especially in genomics and bioinformatics.

Although he’s just finished his first year of studies, he is

already following his research passion in a laboratory in

the Icahn Institute for Genomics and Multiscale Biology by

working on predicting influenza virulence using machine-

learning algorithms. He also is involved in developing a

mobile web application for medical students working with

Mount Sinai’s East Harlem Health Outreach Partnership.

These efforts will help the students efficiently coordinate

the care provided at this free community clinic.

Innovation, as it applies to my interests, can be looked at

as marrying two distinct disciplines and trying to find new

connections between them in ways that perhaps only

few can see. When I came to Mount Sinai for a visit and

interviews, I met researchers who all had this mindset:

They actively sought investigators across the many disci-

plines to collaborate with. I saw a lot of groups where

there were two people on different sides of the fence, so

to speak, and one might say to the other, “If I could work

with you for some computational analysis, we could take

this research to the next level and make more of an impact

with the results.” This is exciting; it jumped out at me and

encouraged me to come here.

Jillian Shapiro, PhD 2013No stranger to the spotlight, Dr. Shapiro was named

by Forbes as one of 2012’s “30 Under 30 Rising Stars

Transforming Science and Health,” an accolade which

highlights how much she has accomplished in a very short

period of time. Her research in microbiology has focused

on one of the major challenges that had stood in the way

of advancing the emerging field of microRNA-mediated

therapeutics. She developed a novel method for delivering

any small RNA sequence to a target cell’s cytoplasm—

something previously thought not possible—and now has

accelerated the move toward more effective therapeutics

for a range of diseases.

In my opinion, innovation is taking existing knowledge and

building on it or putting it together in a different way to

create something new that has the capacity to positively

affect society. While innovative research most certainly

requires a deep understanding of the problem at hand and

ready knowledge of any current related issues, at the same

time, one really needs to let go of preconceived notions of

how a problem may be solved and just try something new,

regardless of whether people say it’s “impossible.” Once I

understood this, I was able to approach problems from a

different angle, allowing for really innovative research to

take place.

Faces to the voices: (from left) Thomas Gardner, sam Golden, Theodore Pak, Jillian shapiro, Benjamin Laitman, Jie su, and (inset) arielle Klepper

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Benjamin Laitman, PhD 2016/MS 2018With the first part of his medical education coming to a

close, Mr. Laitman will soon be starting his research in

Mount Sinai’s Department of Neurology. He is inter-

ested in exploring the mechanism that leads to the

degradation of myelin in multiple sclerosis, ultimately

hoping to find new therapeutic targets for the disease.

Mr. Laitman also was a student panelist at the inaugural

SinaInnovations conference last year, where he took

part in discussions that explored Mount Sinai’s thriving

culture of innovation.

When you’re walking around the Medical Center, you

see doctors, patients, researchers, students; everyone

mixed in together. No one is isolated. This is where the

students are, this is where the researchers are, this is

where the doctors are. And I think that’s a great thing

about Mount Sinai. All of these different worlds have

been brought physically together, and that becomes

very inspiring. My ultimate dream is to be that person

who discovers a new treatment for a disease and then

actually implements it. I know that this is a place

where I can go after that dream.

Thomas Gardner, PhD 2015In his work with cytomegalovirus (CMV) at Mount

Sinai’s Center for Therapeutic Antibody Development,

Mr. Gardner is attempting both to discover more

about the basic mechanism of this common infection

and to find new therapeutic targets to aid the patient

population that is susceptible to its more dangerous

effects. He was able to develop an assay that allows

one not only to learn new information about how

CMV recognizes and enters cells, but also to measure

precisely the severity of an infection. This work has led

to his recent awarding of a Pre-Doctoral Fellowship

from the American Heart Association.

I know this is a cliché, but you really have to think outside

the box when trying to be innovative. For example, many

people would see the assay system I developed and say,

“This has one purpose and that is to quantify an infection.”

But when you think outside the box, you often just can’t

stop considering all of the potential applications of the work.

I think this obsessive thinking is part of being a scientist.

You start to see all the potential, all of the off-shoots that

can happen, and the different ways to interpret the data.

You throw everything at the wall and see what sticks. And

then that’s what you go with. You become accustomed to

a certain amount of failure in the process, but it ends up

driving you. When you do have something that works, it’s

super invigorating.

Jie Su, PhD 2013In trying to understand the pathways involved in stem

cell differentiation, Dr. Su came across a certain enzyme

that had never been reported in stem cell science before.

However, it had been linked to a mutation in cancer,

making her discovery an exciting new bridge between

these two fields. Her study was published last year in Stem

Cell. She now is able to move forward with trying to model

the cancer in human induced pluripotent stem cells.

Our lab links basic research to human disease studies. When

you move beyond basic studies and start to work with

patient samples, the impact of your work really hits you. I

thought, “Wow. Real patients are now a part of my research.”

Knowing that my work might make an impact on someone’s

struggle with a terrible disease like cancer inspired me to

work harder. My translational endeavors became that much

more exciting when I realized someone’s quality of life

might improve because of what I’m doing. I feel very lucky

to work in the field that I do because it allows me to pursue

my burning questions and search for innovative solutions,

while also contributing to new therapies and understandings

in biomedical research.

LEXICON

SiLoS:Departmental bureaucracy and other organiza-tional barriers that must be removed to promote collaboration and innovation.

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“ Now, more than two decades after its last face-lift, the newly renovated PICU permits our remarkable physicians, nurses and other members of the interdisciplinary team to deliver care in a unit that is

state-of-the-art.”

–LisaM.satLin,MD

serious illnesses,” said Mr. Gottesman.

“Now, more than two decades after its last face-lift,

the newly renovated PICU permits our remarkable

physicians, nurses and other members of the interdis-

ciplinary team to deliver care in a unit that is state-of-

the-art in terms of design, operations and technology,”

said Lisa M. Satlin, MD, Professor and Chair of the

Department of Pediatrics, at the dedication. “The

consolidation of the PICU on one floor optimizes the

smooth and seamless delivery of care, while also giving

patients and their families a single place to gather in

support of one another.”

The renovation project involved a comprehensive

redesign, the major feature of which was consolidating

the PICU on the third floor of the Kravis Children’s

Hospital from its previous quarters on part of the third

and sixth floors—a move that will bring physicians and

staff closer to their patients and optimize the delivery

of care. The new unit provides greater privacy and

Gift from Trustee Gottesman Supports New PICU

Trustee David S. “Sandy” Gottesman and Ruth L.

Gottesman, EdD have made one of the largest gifts

to children’s health in Mount Sinai’s history with

a $12 million commitment to support the recently

completed renovation of the pediatric intensive care

unit (PICU), in recognition of which the Medical

Center has named The Alice Gottesman Bayer

Pediatric Intensive Care Unit.

The new unit was formally dedicated at an event in

November 2012. Speaking at the event, Mr. Gottesman,

a Trustee since 1989, paid tribute to his younger sister,

who passed away in 1955 and in whose memory the

unit is named. “I think she would have had great

pleasure in knowing that this new facility will take

care of children who have the most complex and

Campaign Gifts Transforming Mount Sinai

          Left to right: Dean Dennis Charney, Lisa Satlin, President Kenneth Davis, David S. “Sandy” Gottesman, and Ruth L. Gottesman at the dedication of the PICU.

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GIVINGGv

trust to make a difference.”

One of the largest donations toward endowed chairs in

Mount Sinai’s history, the gift supports six Ward-Coleman

Chairs to be held by faculty members whose work shows

the greatest promise to “enhance the prevention, treatment,

and cure of diseases, illnesses, and disabilities of human

beings,” as Mrs. Ward Coleman wished. Five new faculty have

been appointed to chairs to date: Nina Bhardwaj, MD, PhD

(Cancer Research), Director of the Immunotherapy Program;

Judy H. Cho, MD (Translational Genetics), Associate Chief of

Research in the Division of Gastroenterology, and Vice Chair

for Translational Genetics in the Department of Genetics

and Genomic Sciences; Yasmin L. Hurd, PhD (Translational

Neuroscience), Professor, Department of Psychiatry,

Pharmacology and Systems Therapeutics, and Neuroscience;

Paul Kenny, PhD (Pharmacology and Experimental

Therapeutics), Chair of Pharmacology and Systems

Therapeutics and Director of the Experimental Therapeutics

Institute; and Ramon Parsons, MD, PhD (Cancer Research),

Chair of the Department of Oncological Sciences. At press

time, one additional appointment was in process.

The fact that the gift will support some of Mount Sinai’s

most original and innovative physician-scientists is a fitting

tribute to Mrs. Ward Coleman, whose spirit and energy

never dimmed even in the last years of her life—as one

government agent discovered when he came to investigate

the rather improbable claim that a 110-year-old woman

continued to draw Social Security checks. Dr. Shimony says

that Mrs. Ward Coleman invited the agent in and gave him

a first-person account of the history of the Social Security

Administration’s creation.

“She was a remarkable woman,” says Mr. Spanbock.

“Mount Sinai meant a lot to her.”

comfort for children and their families; each room is

equipped with a sleep sofa for parents, a wardrobe for

patient/family belongings, and other amenities. Other

improvements include a family lounge with a special

playroom and a separate family consultation room for

parents to meet privately with physicians.

At the event, Dr. Satlin addressed the Gottesmans

directly. “Please know how deeply we value your gift

and your commitment to child health at Mount Sinai,”

she said.

Full of Life Mount Sinai supporter Ruth Ward Coleman left an

unforgettable impression on all who knew her—and a

legacy that will last for generations

Ruth Ward Coleman, who was 110 when she died in

2012, was never one to take half measures. Passionate

and strong-willed, Mrs. Ward Coleman became a

lawyer at a time when women were discouraged

from harboring such ambitions, and went on to play

an active role in establishing the Social Security

Administration during its formative years. “She was

so much her own person,” says Maurice Spanbock, her

longtime lawyer and the executor of her estate. “She

was like an Edith Wharton character.” When she and

her husband, Lucius Coleman, who passed away in

1990, decided to leave their estate to endow a number

of professorships at Mount Sinai, she embraced the

idea with the single-mindedness of purpose that was

her defining quality. The bequest started out as a

$2 million gift when Mr. and Mrs. Coleman arranged it

in 1980, but in the 30 years since, Mrs. Ward Coleman

guarded her investments carefully and shrewdly to

increase the gift into a $12 million bequest.

“She made a conscious choice to live modestly so

that there would be more in the fund to give to Mount

Sinai,” says Rony Shimony, MD, Assistant Professor

of Cardiology at Mount Sinai Heart and a longtime

friend of Mrs. Ward Coleman. “She enjoyed immensely

over the years discussing how the fund would

positively impact basic research and clinical care.”

“She watched her investments daily, right up until

she passed away, and was always focused on the

growth of the Mount Sinai trust,” says Chy Bullard, a

neighbor whose family Mrs. Ward Coleman regarded

as her own.”She had a lifelong dream of building the Rony Shimony, MD and Ruth Ward Coleman

“ Ruth enjoyed immensely over the years discussing how the fund would positively impact basic research and

clinical care.”

–RonyshiMony,MD

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Internal Medicine Associates is also part of the

recently formed Mount Sinai Cares, a federally

designated Accountable Care Organization (ACO).

The ACO designation was created to encourage

medical centers to find new, cost-effective solutions

that will lead to better care and improved outcomes

for Medicare and Medicaid patients. “Mount Sinai’s

ACO is just one example of the innovative, patient-

centered programs emerging from the Kravis Center,”

said Dean Dennis S. Charney, MD. “We are committed

to redefining the standard of care for hospitals and

medical centers everywhere, and the Kravis family’s

extraordinary philanthropy will help us live up to

that commitment.”

Mount Sinai Global Health, which since 2007

has trained nearly 850 health care workers in local

communities in more than 30 countries, is deeply

rooted in the Kravis Center, according to Philip

Landrigan, MD, MSc, Dean for Global Health and

the Ethel H. Wise Professor of Preventive Medicine.

“Many of the things we are doing to improve the

care of patients right here in New York City are

directly applicable to improving global health, and

vice versa,” said Dr. Landrigan. “The world needs

philanthropic leadership of this caliber to overcome

the cultural and economic barriers that prevent

underserved populations from practicing good health.

We are profoundly grateful for Henry and Marie-

Josée Kravis’s support.”

Henry and Marie-Josée Kravis Make $25 Million GiftA transformational $25 million gift from Trustee

Henry R. Kravis and Marie-Josée Kravis will enable

Mount Sinai to extend its reach to underserved

patients in New York City and around the world by

supporting the work of the clinicians and researchers

housed in the Center for Advanced Medicine, the

base of the Medical Center’s programs in primary

care, preventive medicine, community health, and

global health.

In recognition of Mr. and Mrs. Kravis’s generosity,

the building will be renamed the Marie-Josée and

Henry R. Kravis Center for Advanced Medicine.

“Mount Sinai’s excellence in care, research, and

education is changing attitudes and behaviors about

healthy living in the neighborhood of East Harlem

and around the greater community of New York

City,” said Mr. Kravis. “Marie-Josée and I are proud to

support such a visionary institution.”

“The Kravis Center for Advanced Medicine is both

an integral part of the foundation of our surrounding

community and the launching pad for our growing

global health work,” said President and CEO Kenneth

L. Davis, MD. “Henry and Marie-Josée’s remarkable

gift will touch countless people, and represents the

direction for health care for generations to come.”

Programs headquartered in the 137,000-square-foot

Kravis Center include Internal Medicine Associates,

the primary care practice, which schedules more than

60,000 visits each year; Mount Sinai Global Health,

which oversees and integrates global health activities

across the medical center; and Visiting Doctors,

which delivers care to more than 1,000

homebound adults and is

the largest program

of its kind in the

country.

“ The Kravis Center for Advanced Medicine is both an integral part of the foundation of our surrounding community and the launching pad for our growing global

health work.”

– PResiDentanDCeo KennethL.Davis

More than 200 Trustees and other close friends of Mount Sinai came together on November 28 to celebrate the opening of the Leon and Norma Hess Center for Science and Medicine; a public ceremony on December 13 featured civic leaders from across New York City, who hailed the impact the new building will have on the community, and a warm welcome for Trustee John B. Hess and his family. “Only by investing in the most outstand-ing physicians, scientists, and staff, will we ensure that Mount Sinai continues its leadership in medicine,” Mr. Hess said. “My family and I have a deep sense of gratitude for all the wonderful people at Mount Sinai and the outstanding work you do every day to save lives, care for patients, and conduct groundbreaking research.”

CeNTer oF ATTeNTIoN

Marie-Josée Kravis and Henry R. Kravis

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Mount Sinai will honor Trustee James Tisch and his wife, Dr. Merryl Tisch, with the Noble Deeds Society award at a celebration of the successful conclusion of the Campaign for Mount Sinai. The event, to be held at The Plaza Hotel in October, will pay tribute to the Tisches’ generous support of Mount Sinai over nearly three decades and recognize the many leading donors to the Campaign. Mr. Tisch has served as chairman of the Campaign, which raised more than $1.3 billion in philanthropy, since 2008. “Jim and Merryl’s leadership has had an incalculable impact on our success. They were among the first to champion our bold vision for Mount Sinai’s future. Their generosity trans-formed The Campaign for Mount Sinai, setting the bar for unprecedented giving and inspiring Mount Sinai’s vast community of support-ers to invest in our institution’s growth,” said President Kenneth L. Davis, MD. The Tisches have been dedicated members of the Mount Sinai community since the 1980s. Mr. Tisch became a Trustee in 1988; he and Dr. Tisch have built a lasting legacy at Mount Sinai through their transformational gift in 2008 to

create The Tisch Cancer Institute, now taking its place among the most dynamic, innovative hubs for cancer care and research and increas-ing its global stature. As founding co-chairs of the Children’s Center Foundation, the Tisches have also helped improve the caliber and breadth of pediatric services at Mount Sinai. “Jim and Merryl Tisch embody, in the best sense, the philanthropic tradition that has sustained Mount Sinai for one hundred and sixty years. Their generosity and foresight in establishing The Tisch Cancer Institute have made Mount Sinai an institution of choice for patients facing many of the most com-mon cancer diagnoses,” said Peter W. May, Chairman of the Mount Sinai Boards of Trustees. Mr. and Dr. Tisch have deep roots in the illustrious Tisch family tradition of giving back to the community. In addition to Mount Sinai, they have championed numerous institutions throughout New York with unflagging advocacy and visionary philanthropy. As President and Chief Executive Officer of Loews Corporation, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Diamond Offshore Drilling,

Inc., and a member of the Board of Directors of CNA Financial Corporation and of Loews Corporation, Mr. Tisch leads one of the largest, most influential family businesses in corpo-rate America. Dr. Tisch has built a successful, prominent career in public service. Currently, she serves as the first female Chancellor of the New York State Board of Regents.

Mount Sinai to Honor James and Merryl Tisch at End-of-Campaign Celebration

Mr. and Mrs. Hess (above, center) surrounded by family, friends, fellow Trustees, and Mount Sinai leadership at the Hess Center opening in November.

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Over the past several months, 22 events in New York City and Florida have drawn more than 2,000 guests. Here are some glimpses of how Mount Sinai continues to celebrate our community of dedicated, committed partners.

Celebrations

Greening our ChildrenWhen: May 20 WheRe: Hyatt Regency Greenwich, Old Greenwich, ConnecticutWhO: Phillip Landrigan, MD, MSc, and Jessica Alba

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Dubin Breast Center Second Annual Benefit When: December 10 WheRe: Mandarin Oriental, New York CityWhO: 1. Dean Dennis Charney, Eric M. Ruttenberg, Trustee, President Kenneth Davis, Janet Ruttenberg, Kathy Ruttenberg, Eva Andersson-Dubin, MD, Perri Peltz Ruttenberg. 2. Glenn Dubin, Trustee, Perri Peltz Ruttenberg, Eric Ruttenberg. 3. Elisa Port, MD, FACS, Eva Andersson-Dubin.

Meet the Directors of the Leon and Norma Hess Center for Science and MedicineWhen: April 10 WheRe: Leon and Norma Hess Center for Science and Medicine, New York City WhO: 1. Laurence Magro, Dr. Zahi Fayad, Director, Translational and Molecular Imaging Institute. 2. Susan Mirsky, Dr. Eric Nestler, Director of The Friedman Brain Institute, Nash Family Professor of Neuroscience.

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Honoring richard and Susan FriedmanWhen: April 10 WheRe: Leon and Norma Hess Center for Science and Medicine, New York City WhO: Richard Friedman, Trustee, and Susan Friedman

2013 Crystal PartyWhen: May 2 WheRe: Central Park Conservatory Garden, New York City WhO: 1. Marilyn Friedman and Thomas R. Block, Trustee. 2. Gail Golden Icahn and Carl Icahn, Trustees. 3. Christopher Williams, Trustee, and Janice S. Williams. 4. Eric S. Lane, Trustee and Sarah D. Lane.

A Prescription for Healthy Aging When: February 21 WheRe: The Brazilian Court, Palm Beach, FloridaWhO: 1. Maurice Deane, Barbara Deane. 2. Peter W. May, Chairman of the Board of Trustees, and Leni May.

Children’s Health in the News When: April 3 WheRe: 320 Park Avenue, New York CityWhO: Fabian Silverman, Suzanne B. Price, Jane Novick, Hillary Sherman

Dedication of The Steven and Alexandra Cohen Center for Labor and BirthWhen: May 30 WheRe: Leon and Norma Hess Center for Science and Medicine, New York CityWhO: President Kenneth Davis and Alexandra Cohen

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Trustee Eric M. Mindich and his wife, Stacey, had one criterion for a leadership gift to Mount Sinai. “We wanted to give to something we feel passionate about, and children’s health galva-nized us,” says Mrs. Mindich. The newly named Mindich Child Health and Development Institute (MCHDI), launched three years ago, is directed by Bruce Gelb, MD. “When it comes to children’s health, we should get people fired up about sup-porting the hospital’s needs, especially for our sickest kids,” says Dr. Gelb. “But we also want to convince people that it’s an important invest-ment to conduct the kind of research that will ensure the kids aren’t there in the first place.” Eric Mindich is a Mount Sinai Trustee and the founder and CEO of Eton Park Capital Management, a successful investment man-agement firm; Stacey Mindich is the producer of such Broadway hits as Annie and Lucky Guy. Over the years, the Mindich family—including their three sons, all born at Mount Sinai—has supported a variety of programs at the Medical Center, including The Zone, a recreational and educational space at Mount Sinai’s Kravis Children’s Hospital. Their oldest son, Russell, has become particularly involved, creating a program

for The Zone’s in-hospital television network and helping to launch Surge, a magazine “written by teenagers for teenagers” and produced by the Child Life and Creative Arts Therapy Department. Dr. Gelb and the Mindiches recently discussed building the MCHDI, philanthropy, and children’s health. Bruce Gelb: What was it about our children’s health research that appealed to your philan-thropic interests? eric Mindich: We’d been discussing for some time making a larger commitment, and as we looked for the area where we could have an impact, we asked ourselves three questions.

Is the mission some-thing that we believe in and something that’s within reach? Is it part of an institution that’s a winning organiza-tion? Does it have the leadership to see that through? This institute met all three criteria and that’s what got us interested. Stacey Mindich: It was important to us that we could be believable in talking about the mission we’re supporting because we’d like to be able to bring other people to the table, and we’ve put a lot of thought into that strategy. We want to focus on the people who can collaborate and understand that the MCHDI’s vision is an investment in the future. Dr. Gelb: It’s been obvious to me in work-ing with you that you’re committed to creating something enduring, and that extends to the way you’ve involved your children. Mr. Mindich: All of our children are excited about the idea of the MCHDI, realize that there’s

a stewardship obligation, and have shown an interest in growing their involvement over time. Mrs. Mindich: Teaching our kids to appreciate the importance of philan-thropy has been a priority for us. We’ve been careful to find something that we can really get engaged in, because

we want them to learn that philanthropy is a core value, not a casual commitment. Mr. Mindich: In any organization like this, it requires a lot more resources than just one gift to fulfill the vision over a sustained period of time. Bruce, what would be your perfect role for us? Dr. Gelb: I see our relationship as a part-nership and a conversation. We launched the institute three years ago, and it’s still coming together; so far, we’ve concentrated on recruiting faculty and doing basic infrastructure building. We have work to do to make it a substantive entity. That’s where our partnership with you

can be helpful. Both of you are people who have built things, and that skill set is something that can be applied to building the MCHDI into something that’s highly visible and credible, both internally and externally. Mrs. Mindich: Bruce, what’s your vision for the MCHDI? Where would you like it to be ten years from now? Dr. Gelb: We’re going to be broadening our mission around children’s health over time. We have made a significant investment in basic science research, and that will continue to be an important part of our work, but we’re going to expand our focus into bringing our findings out of the lab and into communities in terms of looking at outcomes and disparities in health. In ten years, I’d like the MCHDI to be a successful, self-sustaining, highly visible endeavor that’s on anyone’s short list of places where great research is being done in children’s health. Mrs. Mindich: That’s going to be a powerful message as we recruit philanthropic partners to join us in this endeavor, filled with promise and potential. Being there at the beginning is exciting. We’re going to travel a long road together and watch something grow.

Philanthropy at WorkThe Mindich Child Health and Development Institute

Stacey Mindich, Dr. Bruce Gelb, and Trustee Eric M. Mindich.

“ When it comes to children’s health, we should get people fired up about supporting the hospital’s needs, especially for our sickest kids.” – Bruce Gelb, MD

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During their time at Mount Sinai, Steven Galson MD,

ISMMS ’83 and Jessie Wolfe Galson PhD, ISMMS ’86

each found not only a career path, but something

equally important: a life partner.

Their choices have worked out very well. Dr. Galson,

one of America’s leading public health physicians,

served as acting Surgeon General in the Bush and

Obama Administrations; Dr. Wolfe Galson has had a

successful career as a medical writer. And the couple

has raised three children, two of whom have followed

in their parents’ footsteps as Mount Sinai students.

Daughter Sophie, after graduating from the Icahn

School of Medicine in May, is embarking on a career

in emergency medicine, and son Victor is in the

class of 2015.

“It’s kind of nice that both of them were interested

in the same profession as their parents,” Dr. Wolfe

Galson says with a laugh, “because you know it

sometimes has the opposite effect—kids say, ‘I never

want to do what my dad or mom does.’”

The senior Galsons met at Mount Sinai through

a mutual friend who knew they had one important

thing in common: the ability to converse in both

English and French.

Dr. Galson, a native of Syracuse, decided on a

medical career in his senior year at SUNY Stony Brook,

after spending a semester working at a hospital in

France—an experience, he says, that made him realize

“how much I really loved working with patients.”

After studying for two years at a medical school in

the city of Lille, he then transferred to Mount Sinai.

His future wife also had a “French connection”

in her background. Dr. Wolfe Galson was raised,

along with her three brothers, in Paris before she

returned to the US for undergraduate studies at the

University of Chicago.

Her choice of Mount Sinai was influenced

by a family friend, Jack Peter Green, MD, the

founder and longtime chair of the Department of

Pharmacology. “He got me excited about the Mount

Sinai program,” Dr. Wolfe Galson says.

While Dr. Wolfe Galson was studying under Dr.

Green for her PhD in pharmacology, her husband

found a Mount Sinai mentor of his own: Irving

Selikoff, MD, the pioneering public health physician

who first alerted the public to the link between

asbestos and mesothelioma.

“He was my strong supporter,” says Dr. Galson, “and

he helped me figure out how to pursue this career [in

public health], which at that time wasn’t a very well-

appreciated area for medical students.”

During his residency, he spent time in Dr. Selikoff’s

laboratory studying human immunodeficiency virus—

soon to be known by its acronym, HIV—which had

only recently come to the attention of medical author-

ities. “The excitement of being a ‘medical detective’

really appealed to me,” he recalls. “That’s what got me

to join the Centers for Disease Control [CDC] after I

finished my residency.”

While he worked at CDC, the Food and Drug

Administration, and other government agencies,

his wife was establishing herself as a writer in the

pharmaceutical industry, working for such companies

as Marion Merrell Dow and Otsuka America

Pharmaceutical. In 2000, she founded the medical

writing department at Human Genome Sciences,

located in the Washington, DC suburb of Rockville, MD.

From 2008-09, the couple were in the Washington

spotlight when Dr. Galson served as acting Surgeon

General. (“I was like ‘the first lady of the public health

service,’ ” Dr. Wolfe Galson jokes.) While serving in a

Medicine: The Galson Family Business

”�The�excitement��of�being�a�‘medical�detective’�really�appealed�to�me.�That’s�what�got�me�to�join�the�Centers�for�Disease�Control�[CDC]�after�I�finished��my�residency.”

–�Steven�Galson,�MD

The Doctors Galson hood daughter Sophie at the 2013 Icahn School of Medicine commencement.

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position that has sometimes attracted strong contro-

versy, Dr. Galson drew praise from both Republicans

and Democrats for his professionalism and his efforts

to raise public awareness on issues such as childhood

obesity and underage drinking.

For the past two and a half years, the Galsons

have finally been able to work together—in the

Southern California headquarters of biotech giant

Amgen, where Dr. Galson is Vice President for Global

Regulatory Affairs and his wife serves as Director of

Regulatory Writing. They have watched with pride

as their children have taken the first steps toward

a medical career. Sophie is now a resident in

emergency medicine at the University of Arizona

Medical Center in Tucson; Victor has not yet decided

on a medical specialty.

Their parents were happy to return to New York

to attend Sophie’s graduation.

”As graduates of Mount Sinai, we both got to

wear the Mount Sinai robes, and we escorted her,”

says Dr. Wolfe Galson. “There’s a hooding ceremony

where each medical student comes up and gets their

diploma and a hood—and we ‘hooded’ her ourselves.

It was really wonderful.” – Philip Berroll

Paul Cunningham, MD, ISMMS ’79, a native of Jamaica, had visited the United

States several times during his childhood. But nothing had prepared him for the

total-immersion experience of a medical student in New York City.

“I grew up on an island 144 miles long and 54 miles wide, and I was a country

boy, very unsophisticated,” he recalls. “And then I was transported into

Manhattan, the most sophisticated, high-intensity outpost of American culture.

It was incredibly exciting, and also completely distracting. But I was there to

learn, so I just took it one day at a time.”

What Dr. Cunningham learned at Mount Sinai has served him well in a distin-

guished career as surgeon and educator. For the better part of three decades, he

has taught at East Carolina University in North Carolina, where he currently

serves as Dean and Senior Associate Vice Chancellor for Medical Affairs at the

University’s Brody School of Medicine while supervising residents at the school’s

affiliated medical facility, Vidant Medical Center.

Dr. Cunningham had dreamed of a career in surgery since early childhood;

his role model, he says, was his family physician, who was also a surgeon. But he

didn’t think seriously about studying medicine in the US until his senior year at

the University of the West Indies in Kingston.

“One of my fellow seniors had gone to Mount Sinai for an externship in

internal medicine,” he recalls, “and he said it was a fabulous facility where he’d had

a very valuable, enjoyable experience. So I decided that I wanted to go there, too.”

At Mount Sinai, Dr. Cunningham studied under distinguished surgeons such

as Drs. Isidore Kreel, Robert Paradny, Arthur Sicular and Edward Jemerin. But his

greatest mentor, he says, was then-Surgery Chair Dr. Arthur Aufses, Jr.

“He remains a legendary figure to me,” says Dr. Cunningham. “He was a

‘surgeon’s surgeon’ who commanded the utmost respect from everyone, because

he had enormous compassion and a work ethic which was second to none. He

taught me not only the art of surgery, but also how to deal with patients in the

most professional manner—to treat each patient as an equal, to do the absolute

From “Country Boy” to Surgeon and Educator

Mount Sinai Honors 2013 Jacobi Medallion Recipients

One of Mount Sinai’s highest awards, the Jacobi Medallion, was presented in March 2013 to a distin-guished group of recipients who have had a lasting impact on the institution (from left): Karen Zier, PhD; Michael L. Brodman, MD, ISMMS ’82; Wayne S. Fuchs, MD, ISMMS ’79 MSH ’83; Senior Vice Chairman of the Boards of Trustees Donald J. Gogel; Jeffrey S. Freed, MD, MSH ’76; and Lisa M. Satlin, MD.

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best for each of them, regardless of who they were.”

It wasn’t long before another change of scenery allowed

Dr. Cunningham to fully practice what he had learned at

Mount Sinai. Two years after graduation, he was working at

Joint Diseases North General Hospital in Harlem (later known

simply as North General Hospital) when he saw an intriguing

want ad in a medical journal.

“It said there was a need for a surgeon in Windsor, in a

remote part of eastern North Carolina,” he recalls. “There was

one aging surgeon serving a population of 10,000 people in the

surrounding county. So I thought, why not go take a look? My

wife and I flew down there on a four-seat plane provided by

the town’s mayor—and I literally fell in love with the people,

and decided that I could do more for them than anywhere else

that I could imagine.”

At Bertie Memorial Hospital in Windsor, Dr. Cunningham

performed a wide variety of surgical tasks –from trauma

surgery to delivering babies through C-section—while also

serving as the local medical examiner. In addition, he taught

part-time at the ECU medical school, which had opened only

four years earlier. By 1984, he was a full-time faculty member;

he became a professor of surgery in 1993 and chief of general

surgery in 1999.

After leaving Windsor to chair the Department of Surgery at

SUNY Upstate Medical University in Syracuse, Dr. Cunningham

returned in 2008 to take his present position.

“They had been struggling with leadership transitions,”

he explains, “and thought that perhaps I’d developed some

leadership skills in Syracuse that would help me serve the

people of their region. I was intrigued by the responsibilities

and decided to take the job.”

Dr. Cunningham believes that present-day medical educators

face challenges no less serious than in his student days at

Mount Sinai.

“We need to teach our students to maintain professionalism

amidst all the transformative changes taking place in medicine,

and to not be distracted by enticements that are more

business-related and less professional,” he asserts, “so that they

can move our profession forward in a meaningful way—a way

that benefits the people whom we serve.” – Philip Berroll

A Message from Jeffrey Laitman, PhD

As my term as President has recently ended, I want to share the major items I‘ve learned—and especially one thread: Reverence for our home and excitement for our future. I am well aware of many of our accomplish-ments, legends, and recountings of “The Giants,” as my colleagues often called some of our past greats. I’ve also come closer to understanding the special bond that many have with Mount Sinai. Born out of necessity, Mount Sinai was founded for the castaways of society, outsiders, second-class refugees who were not welcome—or cared for—elsewhere. From our beginning, we understood that, if our home was to continue, it had to be stronger than the forces around it; we had to see further and more clearly. Since 1977, when I came to Mount Sinai, and more recently as president of our alumni, I’ve had many instances both to learn and to reflect upon the accomplishments that were fostered here by our own: breakthroughs by insightful physicians who were scientists by night, by incomparable National Academy Members, and Nobel laureates, that led to more diseases being named after Mount Sinai physicians and scientists than at any other hospital. The recent challenges by President Davis and Dean Charney to bring forth a new era of “innovation” are appropriately rooted in the fertile soil of creativ-ity that our forbearers began to till so lovingly in 1852. I’ve also learned that success and survival, now as in 1852, take money. Through the historical generosity of our Trustees the framework of our Medical Center is strong. Now it up to us to assure that the chain of good-ness and the values we ascribe to will retain its strength forever. To dig deep, to give generously, is not a burden but a blessing. As our alumni have done since the founding of our “House of Noble Deeds,” we will provide the vision and support to keep the chain strong and enable the spirit of innovation that is part of our genetic blueprint to soar always.

Greetings from the New Alumni Director

I am thrilled to serve as the Director of Alumni Relations and Annual Giving. With more than 10 years experience in development and alumni work, I most recently held the position of Director of Development at The Aleph Society, an organization supporting the work of Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz. Prior to that role, I worked with alumni from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism. I am excited to grow and strengthen the alumni base in close collaboration with our development team. It is a true privilege to work with Mount Sinai Alumni representing, not one, but two wonderful institutions: the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and The Mount Sinai Hospital. The degree of cutting-edge research, expertise and camarade-rie among colleagues is truly astonishing and no doubt reflects its undispu-table reputation. As alumni, you make up the foundation of our continued success and ongoing achievements. We would not be here today without you so please stay in touch and keep us informed of your most recent email address so we can do the same. We can be reached at alumni@mssm.edu, and we certainly want to hear from you.

”�We�need�to�teach�our�students�to�maintain�professionalism�amidst�all�the�transformative�changes�taking�place�in�medicine,�and�to�not�be�distracted�by�enticements�that�are�more�business-related�and�less�professional.”

–�Paul�Cunningham,�MDJeffrey Laitman is Past President of Mount Sinai Alumni Association.

Sharon Meiri Fox, MPA, joined Mount Sinai earlier this year.

55

The pride of Mount Sinai came together at Reunion

2013 as more than 100 alumni gathered to reconnect,

celebrate, and pay special tribute to the classes of 1973

and 1988 upon their 40th and 25th anniversaries.

Held May 10 in the new, state-of-the-art Leon and

Norma Hess Center for Science & Medicine, Reunion

2013 featured campus tours led by current students,

the Mount Sinai Alumni Association’s annual Alumni

Awards Ceremony, and a special cocktail reception

and dinner at which alumni from the classes of 1973

and 1988 were the guests of honor.

Graduates from those years recognized their

milestone anniversaries by giving more than $40,000

to the Icahn School of Medicine’s scholarship fund;

their gift was doubled through a generous match

provided by President Kenneth L. Davis and Trustee

Bonnie M. Davis, both ISMMS ’73.

“Mount Sinai’s graduates are some of the most

accomplished physician-scientists in the world,”

said President Davis. “It is an honor to call them

my fellow alumni.”

A Connection That Stands the Test of Time

Pictured: 1. Members of the ISMMS class of 1973 celebrate with each other and their families. Sitting, from L: Justin Rispler, son of Jacob Rispler, MD; Ilene Steiman, Dr. Rispler’s wife; Dr. Rispler; and Jeremy Tortsveit, MD. Standing, from L: Dorothy Morrison, mother of Bonnie M. Davis, MD; Dr. Davis; Samuel Nussbaum, MD; President and CEO Kenneth L. Davis, MD; and Shawn Tortsveit, Dr. Tortsveit’s wife. 2. Trustee Jean C. Crystal, winner of the Alumni Association’s Dr. Sidney Grossman Distinguished Humanitarian Award, and Trustee James W. Crystal. 3. From L: Debra Wattenberg, MD, Julie Fox, MD, and Susan Drossman, MD, members of ISMMS Class of 1973. 4. Members of the ISMMS Class of 1988 and their families. Standing, from L: Marjorie Seidenfeld, MD; Mark Seidenfeld (husband of Marjorie); Jeffrey Erksine (husband of Pamela Marcus); Anthony Weiss, MD; Jeffrey Levine, MD, Steven Lev, MD, Nancy Basri (wife of Bill Basri), and Bill Basri, MD. Seated, from L: Pamela Marcus, MD, and Jill Baron, MD.

With one of the lowest tuition rates of any top-ranked school in the country, Mount Sinai is committed to helping the next generation of physician leaders take on the medical challenges of tomorrow without taking on excessive debt. But with the cost of attending medical school rising every year, it is still a financial challenge for even the best students to pursue their dreams. Your support can be the difference. Please consider making a gift to scholarships at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.

For more information, please contact:

Lisa Harper Kennedy

Director of Development and

Alumni Relations

212.731.7492

lisa.kennedy@mountsinai.org

philanthropy.mountsinai.org

Medicine is a caLLing. scHoLarsHips are an answer.

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Recognition Awards&

Jeffrey Laitman, PhD, Distinguished Professor; Doctor of Medical Science (D. Med. Sc.) honoris causa, Medical College of Wisconsin; elected Fellow American Laryngological Association (Associate/Scientific Fellow Category, American Laryngological Association)

Gary Butts, MD, Professor; appointed to the NYS Council of Graduate Medical Education, Council of Graduate Medical Education; appointed co-chair of the newly established Mount Sinai Diversity Council in 2012

Samuel Bronfman Department of MedicineAshish Atreja, MD, MPH, Assistant Professor; fellow, Rome Foundation; Career Development Award, Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation of America; member, Executive Board, Center for GI Innovation and Technology, American Gastroenterological Association; web-editor, American Gastroenterological Association

Zachary T. Bloomgarden, MD, MACE, Clinical Professor; awarded Master of the American College of Endocrinology, American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists

Christoph Buettner, MD, Associate Professor; Outstanding Scientific Abstract, Endocrine Society (abstract will be included in the Guidelines for Writing Scientific Abstracts)

Lawrence B. Cohen, MD, Clinical Professor; elected chair, Standards of Practice and Publication Committee, World Endoscopy Organization

Stephanie Factor, PhD, Assistant Professor; inducted into Alpha Omega Alpha Medical Honor Society, Alpha Omega Alpha Medical Honor Society

Gerald Friedman, MD, PhD, Clinical Professor; Guest Editor, Gastroenterology Clinics of North America; member of NIH Working Group on Further Directions for Medical and Other Health Professionals Nutrition Education, Training and Research, National Institute of Health

Christopher DiMaio, MD, Assistant Professor; elected Membership Chairman, Executive Council of the New York Society for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy

Emily Gallagher, MD, Assistant Professor; poster presentation, American Diabetes Association

Donald Gardnier, DNP, FNP-BC, Assistant Professor; awarded NP/PA Clinical Hepatology Fellowship, American Association for the Study of Liver Disease; appointed to Board of Directors, American Association of Nurse Practitioners; appointed to Hepatology Association Committee, American Association for the Study of Liver Disease; awarded Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing Alumni Award for Outstanding Clinical Competence, Case Western Reserve University

Eliza B. Geer, MD, Assistant Professor, Medicine and Neurosurgery; awarded Endocrine Society Presidential Poster Award, Endocrine Society; awarded The Mount Sinai Medical Center Dr. Harold and Golden Lamport Research Award for Research, The Mount Sinai Medical Center

Charles Gerson, MD, PhD, Clinical Professor; appointed Fulbright Specialist, Fulbright Scholar Program; awarded Rome Foundation Fellow, Rome Foundation

Susana Gonzalez, MD, Assistant Professor; awarded American Society for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy the 2013 Cook Medical Don Wilson Award

John Ci-jiang He, MD, Professor; President, Chinese American Society of Nephrology

Joseph Kannry, MD, Associate Professor; awarded Mentored Cancer Prevention, Control, Behavioral Sciences, and Population Sciences Career Development Award, National Cancer Institute

Michelle Kim, MD, MSc, Assistant Professor Department of Gastroenterology; Inducted as an American Gastroenterological Association Fellow; appointed President of New York Society for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy

Asher Kornbluth, MD, Clinical Professor, Department of Gastroenterology, Co-Director of first annual Mount Sinai—Hadassah Inflammatory Bowel Disease course in Eilat, Israel; Co-Director of 2nd Annual “Great Debates and Updates in IBD” course in San Francisco

Rauf Latif, MD, Assistant Professor; Endo 2013 Oral Presentation, Endocrine Society

Mikyung Lee, MD, Assistant Professor; appointed Faculty Member, Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Medical Society, Lambda Chapter; awarded Teaching Excellence Award and Solomon Berson Award, Department of Medicine, The Mount Sinai Medical Center

Staci Leisman, MD, Assistant Professor; Student Council’s Edward J. Ronan Award, Icahn School of Medicine

David DeLaet, MD, MPH, Assistant Professor; awarded fellowship, American College of Physicians and Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai

Derek LeRoth, MD, PhD, Professor; awarded Distinction in Endocrinology Award, American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists

Jenny Lin, MD, Associate Professor; Mentored Cancer Prevention, Control, Behavioral Sciences, and Population Sciences Career Development Award, National Cancer Institute

Aimee Lucas, MD, Assistant Professor; awarded KL2 Translational Research Faculty Scholar award

Luz Amarilis Lugo, MD, Assistant Professor; awarded 2013 Latin Trendsetter, Latin Trends Magazine

Richard MacKay, MD, Assistant Professor; awarded Fellow of the American College of Physicians, American College of Physicians

James Marion, MD, AGAF, Associate Clinical Professor; President, Charaka Club; Physician of the Year, Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation of America

Jeffry I. Mechanick, MD, Clinical Professor; appointed President-Elect (2013-2014) American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists; appointed Lead Editor (2013-2015), President’s Council on Fitness Sports and Nutrition-Research Digest; appointed Chair, Transcultural Diabetes Nutrition Algorithm, Core International Committee

Adolfo García-Ocaña, PhD, Professor; Editorial Board of American Journal of Physiology, Endocrinology and Metabolism, American Physiological Society

Grishma Parikh, MD, Assistant Professor; Poster presentation, “A Case of Ketoacidosis in Pregnancy”, Endocrine Society

Elliot J. Rayfield, MD, Clinical Professor, Endocrinology, Diabetes, and Bone Disease; member, Annual Steering Committee, Endocrine Society

Rajeev Rohatgi, MD, Associate Professor; 2012 Renal Paper of the Year, “Flow-induced prostaglandin E2 release regulates Na and K transport in the collecting duct,” AJP

Gina Sam, MD, Assistant Professor; elected to the Executive Council of the New York Society for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy as Committee Member, NYSGE Membership Committee

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Recognition Awards& Bruce Sands, MD, MS, Professor; Thirteenth Annual Burton A. Shatz Visiting Professor, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO; Chairman, International Organization for the Study of Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IOIBD)

Donald A. Smith, MD, MPH, Associate Professor, member of Mount Sinai Heart; appointed to Board of Directors, National Lipid Association; appointed Associate Editor, Journal of Clinical Lipidology, National Lipid Association

Brijen Shah, MD, Assistant Professor Department of Gastroenterology; 2013 Leonard Tow Humanism in Medicine Award; 2012 Department of Medicine General Teaching Excellence Award

Theresa Soriano, MD, MPH, Associate Professor; awarded Hastings Center Cunniff-Dixon Early Career Physician Award for Palliative Care Leadership, Hastings Center and Cunniff-Dixon Foundation; awarded Cornell University College of Human Ecology Recent Alumni Achievement Award, Cornell University

Yaron Tomer, MD, Professor; elected member, Interurban Clinical Club

Eva Waite, MD, Assistant Professor; awarded fellowship, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai

Richard Warner, MD, Professor; awarded Abramson Cancer Center, Penn Medicine: Focus on Neuroendocrine Tumors Distinguisher Partner in Hope Award; elected to Scientific Advisors Board of The Sandler-Kenner Foundation; Appointed Advisor to the Editors of the Journal of Clinical Oncology

Jerome Waye, MD, Professor; appointed President of the World Endoscopy Organization; awarded Mount Sinai Alumni Outstanding Teaching Award, Mount Sinai Medical Center; awarded Hippocrates Award for presenting a paper in Athens, Greece; Visiting Professor, Panama Society for Gastroenterology; honored by Wong-Tang Fellowship in Advanced Endoscopy at Mount Sinai Medical Center

Robert Yanagisawa, MD, Associate Professor; awarded Clinical Professorship of Medicine, Tohoku University, Japan; awarded Department of Medicine Teaching Award for 2012 Best Grand Rounds Award, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai

Xiaoming Yin, MD, PhD, Assistant Professor; presented at ENDO 2013, Endocrine Society

Department of Microbiology Benjamin tenOever, PhD, Fishberg Professor of Medicine; Palmenberg Award, American Society of Virology

Peter Palese, PhD, Horace W. Goldsmith Professor and Chair; Sanofi–Institut Pasteur Award for Biomedical Research, Sanofi–Institut Pasteur; member, Institute of Medicine of the National Academies

Estelle and Daniel Maggin Department of Neurology Steven Frucht, MD, Professor; named Associate Editor, Movement Disorder Journal; Leadership Award, Dystonia Medical Research Foundation

Fred Lublin, MD, Saunders Family Professor; elected Chairman, Clinical Advisory Committee, National Multiple Sclerosis Society/Southern New York Chapter; Co-Chief Editor, Multiple Sclerosis and Related Diseases; William S. Fields Lecturer and visiting professor, University of Texas Health Sciences Center at Houston, December 14, 2012

Aaron Miller, MD, Professor; elected Secretary, American Academy of Neurology

Rajeev Motiwala, MD, Assistant Professor; A. B. Baker certificate for excellence in Neurologic Education, American Academy of Neurology

Warren Olanow, MD, Professor; Henry P. and Georgette Goldschmidt Professor; Honorary FRCP, Royal College of Physicians of the United Kingdom; Editor-in-Chief, Journal of Movement Disorders; Keynote Speaker, Japanese Neurological Society Meeting

Pullani Shashidharan, PhD, Associate Professor; named Regional Editor of Central Nervous System Agents in Medicinal Chemistry

David Simpson MD, FAAN, Professor; Best Doctors, Castle Connolly, New York Metro Area, Best Doctors in America

Kristina Simonya, MD, Assistant Professor; Award of Merit for Contribution to Neuroscience and Psychiatry, St. John’s College

Coro Paisan-Ruiz, MD, Assistant Professor; 2012 Lucien Côté Early Investigator Award in Clinical Genetics, Parkinson’s disease Foundation

Janet C. Rucker, MD, Associate Professor; elected Chair, Neuro-Ophthalmology and Neuro-Otology Section, American Academy of Neurology

Ruth Walker, MD, PhD, Associate Professor; Associate Editor, Tremor and other hyperkinetic movement

Zhenyu Yue, PhD, Associate Professor, Appointed Director for Basic and Translational Research in Movement Disorders; a regular member of NIH/NINDS study section CMND

Department of Nursing Carol Porter, DNP, RN, FAAN, Edgar M. Cullman, Sr. Chair of Department of Nursing, Chief Nursing Officer, Senior Vice President for the Mount Sinai Medical Center Associate Dean of Nursing Research and Education; Fellow of the American Academy of Nursing, American Academy of Nurses

Janet Johnson, MA, ACNP, ANP-BC, Advanced Nurse Practitioner, Mount Sinai Heart, Cardiology ADS Service; Fellow of the American Association of Nurse Practitioners, American Association of Nurse Practitioners

Dianne LaPointe Rudow, DNP, Associate Professor; Keynote Speaker, University of Alabama Joint Doctor of Nursing Practice Intensive; awarded 2013 Clinical of Distinction Award, American Society of Transplantation

Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Reproductive SciencesMichael Brodman, MD, professor and Chair; 2012 Saul Horowitz, Jr. Memorial Award, The Mount Sinai Hospital; 2013 Jacobi Medallion Award, The Mount Sinai Hospital

Katherine Chen, MD, Associate Professor; keynote speaker, “Interactive Techniques for Teaching the Millennial Learner”, 2012 Institute of Medicine Faculty Development Seminar, Icahn School of Medicine

Nimesh Nagarsheth, MD, Associate Professor; Purple Passion Prize, National Award by Foundation for Women’s Cancer

Department of OphthalmologyTamiesha Frempong, MD, Assistant Professor; member, Alpha Omega Alpha Medical Honor Society

Naomi Goldberg, MD, PhD, Assistant Professor; presented Diagnostic Challenges in Uveitis and the Role of Ancillary Testing and Imaging, Women in Ophthalmology, New York Chapter

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Carlo Iomini, PhD, Assistant Professor, 2012 Speaker, “Cornea, Biology and Pathobiology”, Gordon Research Conference, Ventura, CA

Douglas A. Jabs, MD, MBA, Chairman and Professor; 1st Annual A.E. Finely Distinguished Visiting Professor, University of North Carolina School of Medicine, Chapel Hill, NC; 29th Annual Marion K. Humphries Jr., MD Lecture, University of Virginia School of Medicine, Charlottesville, VA

Edward Raab, MD, Professor; appointed to Board of Governors and Advisory Council, American College of Surgery

Janet Rucker, MD, Assistant Professor; appointed Chair, Nuero-Ophthalmology and Neuro-Otology Section, American Academy of Neurology

Leni and Peter W. May Department of OrthopaedicsAndrew C. Hecht, MD, Assistant Professor; NFL Brain and Spine Committee, National Football League

James Iatridis, PhD, Professor; Chair, Skeletal Biology and Structural Regeneration (SBSR) Study Section, National Institute of Health (two year appointment); guest faculty, the Anatomical Society Summer Meeting in Dublin, Ireland

Department of Otolaryngology

Anthony Reino, MD, Associate Professor; Physician of the Year, James J. Peters VA Medical Center

Lilian and Benjamin Hertzberg Palliative Care InstituteHelen M. Fernandez, MD, MPH, Associate Professor; outstanding Mid-Career Clinical Teacher of the Year Award, American Geriatrics Society

Reena Karani, MD, FACP, Associate Professor; Scholarship in Medical Education Award, the Society of General Internal Medicine

Amy Kelley, MD, MSHS, Assistant Professor; Outstanding Junior Investigator of the Year Award, the American Geriatrics Society

Leslie Libow, MD, CMD, Professor; James Pattee Award for Excellence in Education, the American Medical Directors Association

Diane E. Meier, MD, FACP, Catherine Gaisman Professor of Medical Ethics; Medal of Honor for Cancer Control, the American Cancer Society; Edward Henderson Award, the American Geriatrics Society

R. Sean Morrison, MD, Herman Merkin Professor and Director; Distinguished Achievement Award, American Cancer Society; Excellence Award in Scientific Research in Palliative Care, American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine; Presidential Citation, American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine

Albert L. Siu, MD, MSPH, Professor and Chair; Circle of Life Award, Department of Emergency Medicine, the Mount Sinai Medical Center

Jack and Lucy Clark Department of PediatricsCorinne Benchimol, MD, assistant Professor; NY “Superdoctors” list, SuperDoctors.com; Top Pediatric Nephrologists, US News & World Report

Angela Diaz, MD, Professor; Legacy Award, San Ysidro Health Center; New York “SuperDoctor”, SuperDoctors.com; Best Doctor in Adolescent Health, Castle Connelly

Anne Nucci-Sack, MD, assistant professor; Best Doctor in Adolescent Health, Castle Connelly

Jessica Reid-Adam, PhD, Assistant Professor; awarded a KL-1 research grant, Clinical and Translational Science Award (CTSA), Mount Sinai Medical Center

Jeffrey Saland, MD, Associate Professor; New York “Superdoctors” list, SuperDoctors.com; Top Pediatric Nephrologists, US News & World Report

Lisa Satlin, MD, Chair and Herbert H. Lehman Professor; Castle Connolly list of Best Doctors for the region; J. Lester Gabrilove Award, Mount Sinai Medical Center; Hans Ussing Lecturer, Annual Meeting of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology 2013; Jacobi Medallion recipient, Icahn School of Medicine

Annemarie Stroustrup, MD, Assistant Professor; member, Society for Pediatric Research; member, Perinatal Research Society

Dorothy H. and Lewis Rosenstiel Department of PharmacologyLakshmi A. Devi, PhD, Professor; National Institute for Health Merit Award, 2012-2022, National Institute for Health; Elected Fellow, American Association for the Advancement of Science; keynote speaker, 2012 Postdoctoral Scientist Award Symposium, Neuropharmacology Division, American Society for Pharmacology Experimental Therapeutics

Francesco Ramirez, PhD, Dr. Amy and James Elster professor; 2012 fellow, American Association for the Advancement of Science

Department of Preventive MedicineNils Henning, MD, PhD, MPH, Assistant Professor; Award for Outstanding Service in the International Community, Mount Sinai Auxiliary Board and the Young Women’s Division; symposium speaker “Making the Leap: From Training to a Career in Global Health”, The American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygine (ASTMH) Annual Meeting; keynote speaker at the International Health and Development Conference, Cornell University

Emily Senay, MD, MPH, Assistant Professor; first place National Headliner Award, PBS news magazine Need to Know

Susan Teitelbaum, PhD, Assistant Professor; keynote speaker, “Looking Upstream for Environmental Links to Breast Cancer”, Cincinnati Breast Cancer and the Environment Research Program (BCERP) at Cincinnati Children’s Medical Center and the University of Cincinnati

Department of Psychiatry Cindy J. Aaronson, PhD, Assistant Clinical Professor; member, Board of Directors of Anxiety and Depression Association of America

Schahram Akbarian, MD, PhD, Professor; Eva King Killam Research Award of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology (ACNP); Distinguished Investigator Award, Brain Behavior Research Foundation (BBRF)

Sam Gandy, MD, PhD, Professor; Chairman, Cure Alzheimer’s Fund International Stem Cell Consortium

Rita Z. Goldstein, PhD, Professor; Joel Elkes Research Award, American College of Neuropsychopharmacology (ACNP)

Marianne Goodman, MD, Assistant Professor; Veterans Integrated Service Network (VISN) 3 Directors’ Award for provision of Dialectical Behavioral Therapy to clinicians across the VISN

Wayne Goodman, MD, Professor and Chair; Career Achievement Award from the International OCD Foundation; Elected to the Scientific Council of Anxiety and Depression Association of America

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Recognition Awards& Hirofumi Morishita, MD, PhD, Assistant Professor; 2012 Travel Award, American College of Neuropsychopharmacology; 2013 Basil O’Connor Starter Scholar Research Award, March of Dimes

Larry Siever, MD, Professor; Invited Plenary Speaker at: IASR 2013 World Congress on Suicide (June 2013); XIIIth International Congress on the Disorders of Personality (ISSPD) (Sept 2013)

James Strain, MD, Professor; Master Teacher Award, Institute of Medical Education

Department of Radiology

Burton P. Drayer, MD, Dr. Charles M. and Marilyn Newman Professor of Radiology; appointed to Board of Chancellors, American College of Radiology; appointed Board Member and Treasurer, Radiology Society of North America, Research and Education Foundation

Lale Kostakoglu, MD, Professor; Honored Educator Award, Radiological Society of North America (RSNA)

Thomas Naidich, MD, Professor; named Honorary Founding Member and Invited Lecturer, Opening Session of Inaugural Meeting, Russian Society of Neuroradiology Moscow, Russia; appointed consultant Neuroradiologist, New York State Krabbe Consortium

William Simpson, MD, Associate Professor; appointed Chairman, Radiology Section, The New York Academy of Medicine

Department of Rehabilitation Medicine

Joshua B. Cantor, PhD, ABPP, Associate Professor; member, Board of Governors of the American Congress of Rehabilitation Medicine; Chair-elect, Brain Injury Special Interests Group of American Congress of Rehabilitation Medicine; Associate Editor, Journal of Head Trauma Rehabilitation

Wayne Gordon, PhD, Jack Nash professor; Gold Key Award, American Congress of Rehabilitation Medicine

Kristjan T. Ragnarsson, MD, Lucy G. Moses Professor and Chairman, Department of Rehabilitation Medicine; president, Foundation for Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation;

Board Member and immediate Past President, Association of Academic Physiatrists; recipient of “The Excellence Award” by the Academy of Spinal Cord Injury Professionals; named G. Heiner Sell Distinguished lecturer 2013, the American Spinal Injury Association

Ruth J. Maxwell Hauser and Harriet and Arthur H. Aufses, Jr., MD Department of Surgery Joel J. Bauer, MD, Clinical Professor; keynote speaker, Joint Meeting of Israel Society of Colorectal Surgery and the Israel Society of Minimally Invasive Surgery

Celia M. Divino, MD, Professor; keynote speaker, National Leadership Institute, Student National Medical Association (SNMA)

Neil A. Halpern, MD, Associate Clinical Professor; Roger C Bone Memorial Lecture in Critical Care, American College of Chest Physicians

Thomas M. Heimann, MD, Professor; New York State Chair, Area B, Commission on Cancer of the American College of Surgeons

William B. Inabnet, III, MD, Professor; Chair of the Fellowship Accreditation Committee, Chair of the Collaborative Endocrine Surgery Quality Improvement Program (CESQIP) Committee, American Association of Endocrine Surgeons (AAES); Chair, Standards Committee , the Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery Accreditation and Quality Improvement Program, American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery; Chair of the Executive Committee for Video-Based Education, American College of Surgeons; Arthur M. Shipley Award, 124th Annual Southern Surgical Association Session; fellow, American Surgical Association at the 133rd Annual Meeting; keynote speaker: America Thyroid Association, 82nd Annual Meeting; Argentina Congress of Surgery, 83rd Annual Meeting; Southern Surgical Association; The 4th Annual International Consensus Summit for Sleeve Gastroectomy (ICSSG-4)

Lester Silver, MD, Professor; President’s Award, American Society of Plastic Surgeons; Honorary Fellow, West African College of Surgeons

Translational and Molecular Imaging InstituteZahi Fayad, PhD, Director; Henry I Russek Distinguished Lecturer, 45th Anniversary of the American College of Cardiology Foundation New York Cardiovascular Symposium; International Society of Magnetic Resonance in Medicine

Fellow; Charter Member, NIH Center of Scientific Review Clinical Molecular Imaging and Probe Development Study Section

Milton and Carroll Petrie Department of UrologyMichael J. Droller, MD, Katherine and Clifford Goldsmith Professor; visiting professor, Department of Urology, University of California, San Francisco; visiting professor and Battert Lecturer, Department of Urology, Ohio State University; guest speaker, Urologic Journal Editors Meeting, Hefei China; guest speaker, Department of Urology Medical Center, University of Santiago Medical Center, Santiago, Chile

Grace Hyun, MD, Assistant Professor; 2012-2013 Leadership Program, American Urological Association; member, Urology Committee, New York Academy of Medicine (NYAM)

Michael Palese, MD, Associate Professor; invited speaker, Department of Spiritual Care and Community Education; 2013 grant committee member, National Medical Research Council, Ministry of Health for Singapore; grand rounds speaker; Urology Grand Rounds of Beth Israel Medical Center; invited speaker and panel member, the New York Section of the American Urological Association, Taormina Sicily; invited speaker, Intensive Update with Board Review in Geriatric and Palliative Medicine: 2012 Continuing Medical Education Course, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai; moderator, multidisciplinary Minimally Invasive Surgery, Minimally Invasive Robotic Association (MIRA) & Society of Robotic Surgery (SRS) Joint Annual Meeting, Society of Laproendoscopic Surgeons; 2013 Superdoctors, Superdoctors of New York, New York Times; 2013 Patient Choice Award, patientschoice.org

Jeffrey Stock, MD, Associate Professor; Blue Ribbon, the Institute for Medical Education (IME), Icahn School of Medicine

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