Mount Sinai Science & Medicine 2011 Winter

Mount Sinai SCiEnCE &

Mount Sinai SCiEnCE & MEDiCinE

President and Chief e x e C u tive Offi C e r,

t h e M O u nt s i nai Medi C a l Center

Kenneth L. Davis, MD

a n ne and J O e l e h renkranz d e an, M O u nt s i nai s C h O O l Of Medi C i

e

a

fairs,

Dennis S. Charney, MD

President and Chief O P e rating Offi C e r,

t

e x e C u tive v i C e President O f Business

d

Wayne E. Keathley

s e ni O r v i C e President, d e velO PM e nt,

t

Mark Kostegan, FAHP

e d itO r

Celia M. Regan

a s s O C i ate e d itO r

Travis Adkins

e d itO r ial a s sistant

Rachel Constantine

C O n tri B u tO r s

Philip Berroll

Don Hamerman

Andrew Lichtenstein

Sima Rabinowitz

Catherine Reilly

Matthew Septimus

Kathleen Quackenbush Spiegel

Boris Volunuev

Sarah Wilkins

d e sign

Taylor Design

Mount Sinai Science & Medicine is published three times 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 magazine@mountsinai.org, or call us at (212) 659-8500. Visit us on the Web at philanthropy.mountsinai.org

It’s

a time when the possibilities for drug discovery have never been more promising or plentiful—and a time when pharmaceutical companies are cutting back their search for truly novel drug therapies, focusing instead on blockbusters and copy cats for which success is virtually assured.

Cover photograph: don hamerman

The Center for Discovery and Innovation—Mount Sinai’s new drug discovery engine—promises to go where big pharma no longer so happily treads: seeking diagnostics, treatments, and cures for the diseases that pose the biggest challenge to public health. In this issue, you will read about the scientists whose expertise and zest for solutions fuels that engine, and the technologies that make their investigations possible. The Center draws on the core of Mount Sinai’s mission and values, gathering top scientists to address the most devastating medical conditions, including cardiovascular disease, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, cancer, and infectious diseases. The minds are extraordinary. The possibilities they foresee? Endless.

Message

02 the Center for discovery and innovation—Mount sinai’s new vehicle for drug discovery

VIeW

03 glimpse of hope

NeWs

04 the drs. davis make a gift + goldsmiths up commitment + zweigs give to living donation + Mayor praises diabetes programs + hospital in top 5 + nih: $29.9 million to food allergy project + new director of translational epidemiology + initiative targets cancer among african-americans + Porter’s vision for nursing research and excellence + support from genetic disease foundation

Faculty

08 eight receive honors and recognition + spotlight on 13 new recruits + researchers investigate early tumor detection, the link between diabetes and alzheimer ’s, and the genetics of Parkinson’s

gIVINg

30 Crystals make leadership gift to genomics institute + Macy foundation gift to chronic illness education + giacometti sculpture raises $9.2 Million + Mount sinai Celebrations: noble deeds society dinner, annual Boards of trustees dinner, dedicating the Cohen antepartum unit, the Ob/gyn fashion show, and President’s leadership Circle lecture

aluMNI

34 alumnus dr. Jeffrey freed dedicated to activism + dr goldstein sends a message + dC regional chapter launches + alumni Weekend 2011

The

Center for Discovery and Innovation

11 imagination/reality the new Center for discovery and innovation takes on the challenge of drug discovery.

16 the Quiet revolutionary

dr. ihor lemischka—director of the Black family stem Cell institute—is breaking new ground.

20 found in translation a dialogue on experimental therapeutics between its co-directors, dr. ravi iyengar and dr. Ming-Ming zhou.

24 high hopes

high Content screening: dr. dan felsenfeld and dr. Marek Mlodzik bring new technology to identifying the most promising compounds.

26 viP

Pregnancy’s mysteries may hold the key to treating immunity disorders, says dr. thomas Moran.

MESSAGE

Message from

the President the dean &

Mount Sinai is ideally suited to being the source of drug discovery.

The Center for Discovery and Innovation—Mount Sinai’s new vehicle for drug discovery—represents an extraordinary moment of promise—and paradox.

There has never been a better time for biomedical breakthroughs, and especially those that will lead to the discovery of new diagnostics and therapies for the illnesses that continue to beset humanity. Yet the numbers of novel molecules to receive FDA approval are the lowest in at least 50 years. While there are new drugs for insomnia, erectile dysfunction, and seasonal allergies, there are few if any novel medications for the public health menaces of obesity, diabetes, Alzheimer’s disease, and addictions.

As you will read in these pages, academic medicine can address this paradox. Mount Sinai is ideally suited to being the source of drug discovery. Academic scientists are judged by their investigations, their grant support, the number and quality of the papers they write; for them, drug discovery is an added benefit. But scientific endeavor tied to corporations must result in drugs for commerce; if this work fails, then the scientists are failures. Of course, pharmaceutical companies have good reason for avoiding the risks associated with discovery: Hundreds—even thousands—of attempts to discover new compounds may be needed in order to yield a single viable drug, and the road to FDA approval is full of pitfalls and potholes. Hence failure is anticipated in industry, despite the fact that failure can be devastating.

For scientists like ours, drug discovery is dessert—the icing on the cake. For the scientists in industry, it’s their entire meal. We can accept failure, but they cannot. So we can take more risk, look at the biggest health problems and the diseases of greatest concern to public health, explore the most novel compounds. For big pharma, a success rate means that one in ten projects must yield a product. For us, that rate can be one in ten—or one in 100, or even one in 1,000—because that one will be far more consequential. As part of the Center’s business plan, we will pinpoint the industry partners who will welcome our risk-taking and bring our discoveries to the marketplace. Simply put, academic medicine can take more risk in drug discovery as their consequences are low—but industry has become risk averse. Consequently, discoveries from academic medicine will yield the most novel therapeutics, whereas discoveries from industry will tend toward surer pathways.

The Center for Discovery and Innovation will identify key targets, use novel methods, employ brilliant technology, generate new molecules, and direct its extraordinary energy towards the diseases that are most burdensome to us all. By undertaking a serious discovery enterprise, we will face the same obstacles as our corporate counterparts. The difference is that, for us, the risk allows us to further what we started back in 1852, and represents pure opportunity for our future: the prospect of transforming the health of mankind.

Kenneth L. Davis, MD

Dennis S. Charney, MD President and chief executive officer, anne and Joel ehrenkranz dean, the Mount Sinai Medical center Mount Sinai School of Medicine

executive Vice President for academic affairs, the Mount Sinai Medical center

For more photographs of this work-in-progress, please visit philanthropy.mountsinai.org

Landscape

The Center for Science and Medicine—scheduled to open next year—is already part of the Mount Sinai landscape, taking its place next to the Guggenheim Pavilion on Madison Avenue. Once completed, the building will provide nearly a half-million square feet of space dedicated to translational medicine. For now, its progress and prominence define its promise for the future. Photograph by Don Hamerman

Bonnie M. and Kenneth L. Davis Announce $5 Million Campaign Gift

At the December 2010 Trustee Dinner, Bonnie M. Davis, MD—a Mount Sinai Trustee— and President and CEO Kenneth L. Davis, MD, announced that they have pledged $5 million to The Campaign for Mount Sinai.

“Bonnie and I have a connection to Mount Sinai that goes beyond our professional commitment,” said President Davis, noting that he and Dr. Davis are both graduates of the medical school. “On a personal level, we truly believe in the work being done at Mount Sinai and the people who are doing it. This gift reflects that belief.”

According to Chairman of the Boards of Trustees Peter W. May, the gift from the Davises is yet another example of the strong support that The Campaign for Mount Sinai—which has now exceeded two-thirds of its $1 billion goal—has received from the Mount Sinai leadership. “Trustees have contributed a significant percentage of the campaign’s total funds raised to date,” said Mr. May. “The dedicated and generous support of leaders like Bonnie and Ken Davis sets Mount Sinai apart from other institutions.”

Bloomberg Applauds Diabetes Efforts

In November, New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg issued an official proclamation thanking The Mount Sinai Medical Center for its efforts to educate the city’s Latino population on the management and prevention of diabetes. Noting that 560,000 New Yorkers have diabetes and that nearly 60 percent of them are Latino or African-American, Mayor Bloomberg praised Mount Sinai programs such as diabetes detection screenings, interactive learning sessions and workshops, and healthy cooking demonstrations. “On behalf of all New Yorkers, I am pleased to recognize those associated with The Mount Sinai Medical Center for hosting these programs, and for contributing so much to our great city,”

Mayor Bloomberg said.

Mount Sinai’s renowned diabetes programs include the five-year FREEDOM Trial, a global multicenter study overseen by Dr. Valentin Fuster, Director of Mount Sinai Heart; the FREEDOM Trial has surpassed the 1,000-patient milestone, creating the largest database to date of this patient population and enabling critical data analysis.

“ On a personal level, we truly believe in the work being done at Mount Sinai and the people who are doing it.” – Kenneth Davis, MD

Zweigs Pledge $5 Million to Center for Living Donation

Barbara and Martin Zweig, PhD, recently committed to a $5 million leadership gift to the Recanati/Miller Transplant Institute (RMTI) to support an ambitious new center and to establish an endowed professorship. To be named the Zweig Family Center for Living Donation in their honor, the center focuses on providing the best in medical, surgical, and psychological care to living organ donors (both kidney and liver), while the Sidney J. Zweig Professor of Medicine will play a key role in advancing the knowledge and practice of transplantation.

Noting that there is a critical shortage of organs nationally—and particularly within the New York region—Dr. Sander Florman, the Alfred and Florence Gross Professor of Surgery and Director of the Recanati/Miller Transplant Institute, said that the Zweigs’ gift is wonderfully gracious and very much appreciated. “This gift will allow us to provide dedicated care and specialized services for these incredible people who actually give a piece of their own liver or one of their own kidneys to save another person’s life,” said Dr. Florman.

“Living organ donors are giving the most a person can give,” said Mr. Zweig. “The Zweig Family Center for Living Donation will honor that gift by providing exceptional care. Barbara and I are happy to be a part of this important, innovative new center.”

“Living Organ DOnOrS are giving the MOSt a perSOn can give.”

– Martin Zweig, phD

Hospital Ranks in Top 5

Mount Sinai Hospital maintained its status as the fourth-largest hospital in New York City in 2010 as measured by operating expenses, according to a recent survey published by Crain’s New York Business. Also noteworthy is the fact that among the top 5 hospitals, Mount Sinai had the least year-over-year growth in operating expenses. With 3 percent growth in operating expenses, Mount Sinai also performed significantly better than the overall average of 7.4 percent for the 15 hospitals listed in the survey. “We are very pleased with our success in managing expenses and maintaining our operating margin during this very challenging period,” said Wayne Keathley, President and COO of The Mount Sinai Hospital. “This demonstrates the focus and discipline of our staff and management team and their ability to translate our growth and increase in market share into tangible, financial benefits to the institution. It strengthens our position today, and it creates an operating surplus that will be invested in our future.”

Mount Sinai also continues to place highly in key quality rankings nationwide. New York magazine’s annual Best Doctors list included 178 Mount Sinai faculty and staff in 2010-2011, and the current the “Best Hospitals” issue of U.S. News and World Report ranks 13 of Mount Sinai’s specialties among the nation’s best, including geriatrics at number one, gastroenterology at number five, and heart surgery at number 13. The Mount Sinai School of Medicine is also among the top 20 medical schools, according to U.S. News and World Report.

NIH: $29.9 Million for Food Allergy Research Project

A five-year grant of $29.9 million from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) will enable Mount Sinai School of Medicine to continue innovative investigations into the prevention and treatment of common food allergies. Led by MSSM, the Consortium of Food Allergy Research (CoFAR)—comprised of six institutions—is conducting trials of immunotherapies that desensitize children to allergens in peanuts and eggs. The grant will also fund new genetic research on eosinophilic gastrointestinal diseases, a group of allergic diseases that can cause nausea, vomiting and abdominal pain after eating.

“The renewal of this grant shows that the NIH thinks we’re making significant progress,” says Hugh Sampson, MD, Professor of Pediatrics, Dean for Translational Biomedical Sciences and Director of the Jaffe Food Allergy Institute, Mount Sinai School of Medicine. “Food allergies are an important area of research and represent an unmet medical need. Our goal is to find treatments that produce tolerance.”

Experts estimate that nearly one in 25 children has a food allergy. A Mount Sinai study found that the incidence of peanut and tree-nut allergies tripled between 1997 and 2008. Approximately 80 percent of all fatal and near-fatal anaphylactic reactions are a result of such allergies.

One of CoFAR’s most significant findings is a study that revealed that children whose mothers ate peanuts during pregnancy were three times more likely to show peanut sensitivity than those whose mothers did not eat peanuts. The study, which published its results in the November 2010 issue of the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, tracked 512 infants. “We will be watching the children for five more years to see how many develop true peanut allergies so we can improve diagnosis and treatment,” says Scott H. Sicherer, MD, Professor of Pediatrics and lead researcher for the study. Within the next five years, Dr. Sampson says he expects to make substantial “progress in developing food allergy treatment and understanding why children develop allergies.”

Boffetta Appointed Director of the Institute for Translational Epidemiology

Paolo Boffetta, Md, MPH, the Bluhdorn Professor of international community Medicine, is the newly appointed director of the institute for translational epidemiology. under his leadership, the institute for translational epidemiology will expand its scope by collaborating with Mount Sinai’s many clinical, basic, and applied research programs and by coordinating partnerships with international networks and consortia. dr. Boffetta’s appointment reflects his “vision for advancing interdisciplinary and patientoriented research, and contributing to the overall efforts in translational research and personalized

medicine at Mount Sinai,” says dennis S. charney, Md, the anne and Joel ehrenkranz dean and executive Vice President for academic affairs. a world-renowned cancer epidemiologist, dr. Boffetta has conducted research into disease and epidemic patterns in cultures across the globe. “My work is like an adventure because i have to explore new territories to understand the biology of diseases and the unique cultural elements that contribute to their spread,” says dr. Boffetta. “i hope my work here at Mount Sinai will enable me to be more effective in developing strategies for prevention and control of chronic diseases.”

MSSM Teams with National Black Church Initiative to Fight Deadly Cancers

Mount Sinai School of Medicine and the national Black church initiative (nBci), a coalition of 34,000 africanamerican churches, are partnering on a study to evaluate the most effective way to deliver information about breast and prostate cancer to african-american patients. according to the national cancer institute, africanamerican women who are diagnosed with breast cancer have a 71 percent rate of survival five years after diagnosis, compared to 86 percent among white women. death rates from prostate cancer among african-american men are about 2.4 times higher than in white men.

the partnership between Mount Sinai and nBci—which marks the first time that the nBci has teamed up with a research hospital—is designed to find the best communication tactics to raise awareness about breast and prostate cancer among the african-american community.

“ traditionally, health education outreach to africanamerican communities from government and private organizations has not reached the patients most in need of the information,” says Michael diefenbach, Phd, associate Professor of urology and oncological Sciences. “ we are excited to work with the nBci to bring needed information to african-american cancer patients.”

Nursing Chief Leads Innovative Research Partnership

Carol Porter, DNP, RN sees her role at Mount Sinai as “conveying the nurse’s perspective to the Medical Center, and vice versa.” As Mount Sinai’s Chief Nursing Officer—and recently appointed Associate Dean of Nursing Research and Education—she has been a strong advocate for the importance of nurses in both medical research and clinical practice. One of her proudest achievements has been helping to establish Mount Sinai’s Center for Nursing Research and Education (CNRE) and serving as the CNRE’s first Director since its official launch in May 2010. An ambitious collaboration between the Mount Sinai School of Medicine and the Department of Nursing, the CNRE seeks to advance translational research—bringing the experience and insights of clinical nurses into medical research, while integrating the results of that research into both nursing education and patient care.

Dr. Porter and the CNRE are also working with Mount Sinai’s new Global Health program, headed by Philip J. Landrigan, MD, MSc, to share ideas in nursing research, education, and practice with other medical institutions around the world. At the recent annual Global Nursing Leadership Institute (GNLI) in Geneva, Switzerland, Dr. Porter, who was in attendance, says she was impressed “to hear how Mount Sinai nurses are held in high regard globally.”

Dr. Porter notes that a recent report, “The Future of Nursing,” from the Institute of Medicine (the health arm of the National Academy of Sciences), gives credence to the CNRE’s mission. “The report recommends that nurses should be full partners with physicians and other health professionals in redesigning health care in the US,” she says. “We’re positioned very well for this—because the Center is already partnering with physicians at Mount Sinai.”

– Philip Berroll

Michael Diefenbach, PhD

Focus: Genomics

over the past decade, the Genetic disease Foundation (GdF) has donated state-of-the-art equipment for gene and genome analyses to Mount Sinai’s department of Genetics and Genomic Sciences. “ the availability of the latest, most sophisticated research equipment has facilitated the expansion of research capabilities, including disease gene discovery, analysis of gene expression and regulation,” said robert desnick, Md, dean for Genetics and Genomics, “as well as the ability to sequence a person’s genome. Such advances include identification of the genes causing over a dozen genetic disorders, ground-breaking research on a variety of genetic disorders, obesity, as well as breast, ovarian, and prostate cancers. the GdF’s donations have also helped recruit outstanding faculty and increased the research and clinical capabilities in the department and in the institution.”

FACULTY

Recognition &Awards

From leFt to right:

gervaise gerstner, mD

Daniela Schiller, mD

Benjamin tenoever, PhD

Kenneth Davis, mD and Bonnie Davis, mD

Analisa DiFeo, PhD

lloyd mayer, mD

eric J. Nestler, mD, PhD

Douglas A. Jabs, mD, mBA

Gervaise Gerstner, MD, Appointed to Scientific Advisory Committee

Gervaise Gerstner, MD, Assistant Professor of Dermatology, was recently appointed to the Scientific Advisory Board of Regenicin, Inc., a development stage company focusing on technologies that restore the qualities of severely damaged skin. An authority on skin health, Dr. Gerstner has been on the Mount Sinai faculty since 2003.

NYAS

Honors Daniela Schiller, MD

The New York Academy of Sciences (NYAS) has selected Daniela Schiller, MD, Assistant Professor of Psychiatry, as a recipient of its 2010 Blavatnik Award for Young Scientists, a post-doctoral award that includes $15,000 in unrestricted funding. Dr. Schiller received the award for research focusing on memory and emotion, in particular on the neural mechanisms underlying emotional control.

Young Investigator Award Granted to Benjamin tenOever, PhD

Benjamin tenOever, PhD, Assistant Professor of Microbiology, was recently honored with the American Society for Microbiology’s 2010 Young Investigator Award for his work in understanding small RNAs and their potential antiviral roles, including novel strategies for vaccine design and for engineering recombinant viruses for therapeutic purposes.

Adolescent

Health Center Honors

Bonnie and Kenneth Davis

At its annual Breakfast of Legends, Mount Sinai’s Adolescent Health Center honored Bonnie M. Davis, MD, a Trustee of The Mount Sinai Medical Center, and Kenneth L. Davis, MD, President and CEO, for their commitment to New York City’s youth. Also honored were Adolescent Health Center leaders Joan E. Morgenthau, MD, the founder of the Center; Charles and Wyn Roussel, members

of its board; Elizabeth Lorde-Rollins, MD, Assistant Professor of Pediatrics and Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Reproductive Science; and Barry B. Stein, MD, Assistant Clinical Professor, Pediatrics.

AnaLisa DiFeo, PhD, Wins Grant from OCRF

AnaLisa DiFeo, PhD, Instructor in the Department of Genetics and Genomic Sciences at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, won the Liz Tilberis Grant from the Ovarian Cancer Research Fund (OCRF) and will receive $450,000 over three years to study chemotherapeutic resistance in epithelial ovarian cancer, the most lethal gynecologic malignancy in the United States.

Lloyd Mayer, MD, Recognized by CCFA

Lloyd Mayer, MD, was recently honored by The Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation of America (CCFA) for his dedication to improving the quality of life for the 1.4 million Americans suffering from Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis. Dr. Mayer is Chair of the Immunology Institute, Chief of the Division of Clinical Immunology, Professor of Immunology, and the Dorothy and David Merksamer Professor of Medicine.

IOM Recognizes Nestler

Eric J. Nestler, MD, PhD, the Nash Family Professor of Neuroscience and Director of the Friedman Brain Institute, was a co-recipient of the Institute of Medicine’s 2010 Rhoda and Bernard Sarnat International Prize in Mental Health for his achievements in addiction science.

Jabs Selected for Lecture

Douglas A. Jabs, MD, MBA, Professor and Chair of the Department of Ophthalmology, CEO of the Faculty Practice Associates, and Dean for Clinical Affairs at The Mount Sinai Medical Center, was selected to deliver the Jackson Memorial Lecture at the Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Ophthalmology in October 2010.

New ReCRUITS

Philip Brickner, MD, FACP has joined mount Sinai as Director of tuberculosis Studies in Community medicine, a division in the Samuel Bronfman Department of medicine. Dr. Brickner previously served as Chairman of the Department of Community medicine at Saint Vincent’s hospital and medical Center. he is currently leading a national research project on the use of ultraviolet energy in homeless shelters to sterilize the air of tuberculosis bacteria.

Andrew Chess, MD recently joined mount Sinai as Professor of Developmental and regenerative Biology, Neuroscience, and genetics and genomic Sciences.

Dr. Chess comes to mount Sinai from harvard medical School and the Broad institute of mit and harvard.

Dr. Chess’s research focuses on developing approaches to studying epigenetic regulation at the scale of the entire human genome.

George D. Dangas, MD, PhD, FAHA—who completed his fellowship training at mount Sinai—has returned as Director of Cardiovascular innovation at mount Sinai heart. Dr. Dangas most recently served as Director of the Program in interventional Cardiology at the Columbia University medical Center. he is a leading authority on nonsurgical cardiac and vascular interventions, as well as in transcatheter treatment of coronary, peripheral, and valvular heart disease.

Philip Friedlander, MD, PhD has joined mount Sinai as Director of the melanoma medical oncology Program and Assistant Professor in hematology and medical oncology. Prior to that, Dr. Friedlander practiced in the melanoma Center at Dana-Farber/Brigham and Women’s Cancer Center and served as an instructor of medicine at harvard medical School. his research focuses on the development of molecularly targeted and immune therapies for malignant melanoma.

Mark W. Green, MD is the new Director of the Center for headache and Pain medicine and Professor of Neurology and Anesthesiology. Dr. green previously served as Director of headache medicine and Clinical Professor of Neurology at Columbia University. he has lectured throughout the world on headache and facial pain and has written numerous articles on the subject.

James Iatridis, PhD has been named Director of Spine research and Professor in the leni and Peter may Department of orthopaedics. Dr. iatridis formerly served as Professor of mechanical and Biomedical engineering at the University of Vermont, where he received the Ao research Fund Prize.

Hanna Yoko Irie, MD, PhD is joining the tisch Cancer institute as an Assistant Professor of hematology and medical oncology. She will conduct basic research in breast cancer, focusing on the genetic basis for breast cancer metastasis, and will also provide clinical services in the Dubin Breast Center. Dr. irie’s background includes positions at the Dana-Farber Cancer institute and harvard medical School.

Robert Maki, MD, PhD has joined mount Sinai as Chief of the Division of Pediatric hematology oncology and medical Director for the Sarcoma Cancer Program in the tisch Cancer institute. Dr. maki’s responsibilities include expanding sarcoma cancer research programs, delivering a personalized treatment approach to sarcoma patients, developing novel therapeutics, and building a portfolio of translational clinical trials. Dr. maki previously served at the Weill Cornell medical College and at memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.

Roxana Mehran, MD, FACC, FACP, FCCP, FSCAI, FESC returns to mount Sinai as Director of interventional Cardiovascular research and Clinical trials. While a member of the faculty at Columbia University, Dr. mehran gained international recognition as a clinical trial specialist and expert on outcomes research in interventional cardiology who published over 450 articles in peer reviewed journals.

Michael J. Robbins, MD is now a full-time faculty member. Dr. robbins came to mount Sinai as a fellow in cardiology in 1985 and then joined the voluntary faculty while maintaining his own consultative cardiology practice. his academic interests include the management of coronary disease in patients with renal insufficiency.

Robert S. Rosenson, MD, FACC, FACP, FAHA, FNLA has been appointed Director of the Cardiometabolic Disorders Program at mount Sinai. Dr. rosenson was Principal investigator for several Nih-funded and industrysponsored multicenter studies investigating the effects of lipid-lowering, hypoglycemic and antihypertensive therapy on inflammation, thrombogenesis, and blood rheology. At mount Sinai heart, he will conduct outpatient sessions focused on preventing cardiovascular disease in patients with atherosclerosis, diabetes, and dyslipidemias.

Bruce E. Sands, MD, MS, an internationally recognized inflammatory bowel diseases expert, recently joined mount Sinai as the Dr. Burrill B. Crohn Professor of medicine and Chair of the henry D. Janowitz Division of gastroenterology. Previously, Dr. Sands was medical Co-Director of the Crohn’s and Colitis Center and Acting Chief of the gastrointestinal Unit at massachusetts general hospital in Boston, as well as Associate Professor of medicine at harvard medical School.

Pamela Sklar, MD, PhD, who has developed a worldrenowned program for genetic study of schizophrenia and bipolar disease, is joining mount Sinai School of medicine as a Professor of Psychiatry. Dr. Sklar arrives from harvard medical School, massachusetts general hospital, and the Broad institute of mit and harvard, where she was a founding member of the Stanley Center for Psychiatric research and its Director of genetics from 2007–2010.

Research Roundup

Investigating a New Method of Tumor Detection

Research being done by Aurelian Radu, PhD, Assistant Professor, Developmental and Regenerative Biology, holds promise to improve early detection of tumors— potentially, a significant advantage in a the battle against cancer. Working with a team of scientists from France, Dr. Radu evaluated tumor tissue samples from 1,336 men and women with 11 common cancers—including prostate, breast, colon, pancreatic, lung, liver, and ovarian—and found the presence of the follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH) receptor in the blood vessel cells of the tumors. Since the FSH receptor is not found on blood vessels in normal tissue—with the exception of the reproductive organs—oncologists and other physicians could screen for cancer by injecting patients with tumor imaging agents designed to bind to the FSH receptor. Such a process “would make visible early tumors located anywhere in the body using magnetic resonance imaging, positron emission tomography, or ultrasound imaging,” Radu explains. Blocking the activation of the FSH receptor could also slow or even halt tumor growth by inhibiting the signaling of the protein VEGF, which stimulates the growth of blood vessels. This could lead to new treatments that will block the tumor blood supply, “either by inhibiting formation of new blood vessels, blocking the blood flow by coagulation, or by destroying the existing tumor vessels,” says Dr. Radu.

Connecting the Links Between Diabetes and Alzheimer’s

A gene associated with the onset of Type 2 diabetes is also found at lower-than-normal levels in people with Alzheimer’s disease, according to the findings of a team of Mount Sinai School of Medicine researchers. Led by Giulio Maria Pasinetti, MD, PhD, The Saunder Family Professor in Neurology, and Professor of Psychiatry and Geriatrics and Adult Development, the team found that a gene known as proliferator-activated receptor

5

million

More than five million Americans are affected by Alzheimer’s disease, a number that is expected to skyrocket in the next three decades as the population ages.

coactivator 1 (PGC-1), a key regulator of glucose currently investigated as a potential therapeutic target for Type 2 diabetes, is decreased in Alzheimer’s disease. The team reports that this decrease might be causally linked to promotion of Alzheimer’s. “Our research is the first to find that PGC-1 is a common denominator between Type 2 diabetes and Alzheimer’s disease,” said Dr. Pasinetti. “This discovery will have significant implications for the more than five million Americans affected by Alzheimer’s disease, a number that is expected to skyrocket in the next three decades as the population ages. We look forward to continuing to research this discovery and translate it into the development of novel approaches for disease prevention and treatment.”

Getting to the Roots of Parkinson’s Disease

A team of Mount Sinai researchers may have come one step closer to understanding the genetic causes of inherited Parkinson’s disease, the most common form of Parkinson’s. Through advanced genetic engineering, the team studied the effects of mutations in a gene called LRRK2—which has long been known to play a role in Parkinson’s—in a mouse. The mouse model achievement is a significant development, according to Zhenyu Yue, PhD, Associate Professor of Neurology and Nueroscience, who led the team. “Not having a mouse model had been a barrier to bringing the LRRK2 breakthrough from bench to bedside,” says Dr. Yue. “The new model likely replicates the earliest stages of Parkinson’s disease, giving us the opportunity to understand the biochemical and molecular events that cause the disease.” The research demonstrates how mutated LRRK2 produces too much kinase activity in the brain. Dr. Yue and his team are now looking into whether the increase kinase activity accounts for the reduced dopamine levels that subsequently lead to neurodegeneration.

imagination RE a L it Y

What if they were the same thing? What if the medications physicians can only dream of for their patients—the preventives, the treatments, even the cures—weren’t lifetimes away, but available with a few strokes on a prescription pad?

What if imagination and reality were one, brought together through a brilliant collaboration of scientists and clinicians?

Over recent decades, the gap between medical imagination and scientific reality has become appreciably smaller. In many major areas—certain cancers, some cardiovascular conditions, a variety of viruses and immune disorders, and even a few of the neurological diseases that once seemed inexplicable—

we have developed the drugs that have closed that gap forever. New medications are changing the natural course of diseases— slowly, perhaps, but surely.

Mount Sinai likes the surely, but isn’t so keen on the slowly.

“We have the means to speed up the process and make it even more effective,” says Kenneth L. Davis, MD, CEO and President.

“This is the golden age of biology, and no one is better poised to discover life-changing drugs than the translational scientists of Mount Sinai.”

Imagination is becoming reality. Here. Welcome to the Center for Discovery and Innovation at Mount Sinai. 

THE CENTER FOR DISCOVERY + INNOVATION

tHe vision for innovation

Over the last several decades, biomedical researchers have made medical advances that were unimaginable just a few decades ago. The human genome has been mapped, and we now understand how some of the tiniest molecules in our bodies play a role in the development of disease. The fast pace of science means that every day new treatments emerge. Today, doctors have many tools to fight and even prevent diseases like influenza, diabetes, heart failure— diseases that were death sentences not very long ago. Mount Sinai is harnessing the power of this new era to emerge as an engine of therapeutic discovery. It will happen in a new center dedicated to finding lifesaving therapies for the world’s most complex diseases: The Center for Discovery and Innovation at Mount Sinai. The work of the Center for Discovery and Innovation (or CDI) is painstaking, massive, inspiring, challenging, world-changing—and already underway. A virtual center, the CDI is a Mount Sinai network of researchers and physicians—powered by sci-fi technology—who think about therapies the way gourmet chefs plan meals for their most gratifying customers: with care, with relish, with a nose for combinations and a certainty that great results are within their grasp.

Heart

“Mount Sinai is very pro-translation; the set-up here facilitates it,” says Roger J. Hajjar, MD, Director of Mount Sinai’s Cardiovascular Research Center. “In laboratories elsewhere, there is a focus on discovery: validating the discovery of what goes wrong in disease, correlating diseases with certain abnormalities, and validating targets. But they can’t go very far forward from there. Here at Mount Sinai, we have the infrastructure to validate targets like everyone else, but from there, we can actually take our science and turn it into real therapies.”

Dr. Hajjar speaks from experience. Research conducted by him and his team has resulted in the development of MYDICAR,® the world’s first potential gene therapy for heart failure which will be undergoing phase 3 validation later this year. The development of MYDICAR, which actually heals heart tissue that has stopped working, has led to new treatment possibilities for patients with advanced heart failure, whose options used to be severely limited. Creating a potential breakthrough drug such as MYDICAR would be a crowning accomplishment for most scientists, but Dr. Hajjar and his team aren’t stopping there. Their next research projects, already underway, focuses on using novel gene therapy vectors to target ventricular arrhythmias, pulmonary hypertension, and myocardial infarctions.

The development of MYDICAR and the world of research possibilities it opened up in the process is an elegant example of the type of therapeutic discovery work the CDI will enable through investment in—and the enhancement of—research technologies, and by focusing on disease areas in which the Medical Center has deep biological knowledge and clinical expertise.

Collaborative Cor e

Five core facilities encompass the advanced technologies needed to speed translation of discovery to their therapeutic targets:

 Small Molecule Drug Discovery: The facility investigates and develops drugs based on small molecules, an approach that results in betterdesigned drugs with fewer side effects.

 Monoclonal Antibodies: Researchers in the Monoclonal Antibodies facility are working with the most advanced piece of equipment ever made—the human body—to tap into the drug-development potential of antibodies made by our own immune system.

 High Content Screening/RNAi: Each week the High Content Screening/RNAi center analyzes thousands and thousands of different drug compounds, identifying the most promising treatments with a speed and accuracy which was unimaginable just a few years ago.

 Induced Pluripotent Stem Cell: Scientists in the Induced Pluripotent Stem Cell facility can reprogram a skin cell taken from an adult’s arm into a brain cell— and might transform the shape of medicine as a result.

 Systems Pharmacology and Network Analysis: By harnessing the raw horsepower of state-of-the-art computers, the Systems Pharmacology and Network Analysis facility enables researchers to forecast likely results before they get to the clinical trial stage, saving them crucial time.

Dennis Charney, MD, Anne and Joel Ehrenkranz Dean of Mount Sinai School of Medicine, sees these cores as the heart of the CDI. “First of all, they take advantage of the deep biological research that can only happen at an academic medical center,” he says. “The pharma industry doesn’t have the benefit of our biomedical knowledge base, but our cores—and the scientists who run them—are embedded in that base. They will get more early leads on small molecules, biological, and other novel therapeutics that we can test.

CHanging tHe Course

“Not too long ago, middle aged men would, not commonly, die suddenly of heart attacks. But that rarely happens today. People have almost forgotten about this because medical care for heart attacks has improved so dramatically,” said Dr. Eric Nestler, Director of Mount Sinai’s Friedman Brain Institute and Nash Family Professor of Neuroscience. “In other words, science has changed the natural course of cardiovascular disease.”

The purpose of the CDI is to do just that: change the course of disease. As envisioned, it will bring together a group of approximately 30 renowned translational scientists—many of them successful drug developers and patent-holders themselves—with the charge of translating discovery into therapeutics and generating new intellectual property. Under the direction of a senior leader, who will be recruited on the basis of his or her international stature in translational medicine and in the successful development of therapeutic interventions, this discovery group will identify the most promising research within all of Mount Sinai’s disease-focused institutes.

The goal: to illuminate new disease targets and the molecules that can treat those targets.

“And unlike the outsourcing that the pharma industry relies on for lab services, our hi-tech cores are right here, directed and staffed by scientists who work side by side with our disease-focused investigators. Collaboration is in Mount Sinai’s DNA, giving the CDI a powerful advantage.”

To support therapeutic discovery, Mount Sinai will expand the facilities and capabilities of its Experimental Therapeutics Institute, providing the state-of the-art technologies—called “core research facilities” in the CDI’s business plan. These five research facilities will drive discovery in a range of disease areas that are among Mount Sinai’s greatest strengths: heart, cancer, brain, immunology, and virology—and that also represent the most pressing global disease burden.

Ultimately, the work of the CDI’s scientists will result in intellectual property, patents, pharmaceutical partnerships, and licenses for drugs. The CDI will generate new therapies, but it will also push them toward the marketplace for the patients who need them.

“Therapeutic discovery is also the business model of the future for academic medical centers,” says President Davis. “By patenting and commercializing our discoveries, not only are we generating therapies that save the lives of our patients and patients around the world; we’re also establishing a plan for the continued success of Mount Sinai. The return on the investment is exponential.”

good timing. rigHt pl aCe.

The timing couldn’t be better for Mount Sinai to take the lead in this arena. Even as the pace of biomedical research speeds up, things have slowed down for the pharmaceutical industry. Over the last several decades, the therapeutic development pipeline has dried up for large drug companies. The industry can no longer afford the risk involved with the early work of finding new disease targets and pursuing novel molecules as potential therapies. Because for investors, the failure of a drug during clinical trials is too expensive—and often means the failure of a company.

In recent years, the mainstream media have been reporting on these failures as often as they have trumpeted success. According to The New Yorker, a 19th-century model—“when chemists synthesized and screened thousands of compounds”—is still, in a more sophisticated form, the norm. “Success is still in many ways thought to be a matter of brute force…. Bigger has always been seen as better.”

But is it? Mount Sinai, believing otherwise, is focusing on the role the academic medical center can play in restructuring the model.

“The big pharmaceutical companies have essentially become sales and marketing firms, biotech firms have become the clinical trials companies, and academic medical centers have become the discovery companies,” says Prem Reddy, PhD, a cancer biochemist and

Director of Cancer Experimental Therapeutics for the Tisch Cancer Institute. Dr. Reddy is already in the process of commercializing one of his cancer drugs, expected to hit the market in the next year—he and his colleagues are building a drug pipeline in Mount Sinai’s laboratories.

“And we’re not only going after the low-hanging fruit, the very small diseases,” said Dr. Reddy. “We’re going after all of them.”

“The failure to develop new therapies is not the fault of the pharmaceutical industry—many capable people with ample resources have been working on these problems for decades,” said Dr. Eric Nestler.

“But at Mount Sinai, we have unique insight into human biology, we can pursue more novel leads, and we are nimble enough to take new approaches to fighting disease that would be considered too risky, or too basic, for drug companies.”

Can C er Early in his career, Stuart Aaronson, MD, Chair of Oncological Sciences at the Tisch Cancer Institute, made a discovery—for which he holds the patent—that resulted in the blockbuster breast cancer drug Herceptin.® Today, millions of breast cancer patients live longer and healthier lives thanks to his accomplishment. After making that prominent discovery, Dr. Aaronson came to work at Mount Sinai almost two decades ago.

“I came here to be in a place where we could build upon an outstanding clinical effort as our partner in research,” Dr. Aaronson says. “Mount Sinai is unusual in that there are very few medical centers in the country with the focus to build something like the CDI that allows us to take our discoveries farther, and make them more valuable, by bringing them to patients.”

Dr. Aaronson says that he and his colleagues, many of whom are successful drug developers and patent holders, feel energized and validated by the creation of the Center for Discovery and Innovation. The CDI drives therapeutic discovery in the areas in which it is most likely to take place, and most likely to succeed.

“Here at Mount Sinai, we study the intimate details of disease so that we can better target it where it is weak; where we have an Achilles’ heel to attack,” says Dr. Aaronson. “The CDI is moving our knowledge to the point where we can develop the therapeutics of the future. This is why, as a physician, I went into science: We need to move these discoveries as fast as possible to our patients.”

tHe view from mount sinai

Kenneth Davis sees the forest, the trees—and the sky, the leaves, and the new growth dormant in the branches. His view combines the enormous canvas that is health care, the tremendous unknowns in the dark that await detection through screenings, and the pinpoint clarity of immediate necessity. Mount Sinai, he says, has the innate capacity to bring to life the promise of this landscape.

“As a hospital that gave birth to a medical school, Mount Sinai is uniquely suited to launch an effort like the CDI,” says Dr. Davis. “The Medical Center is known globally for our clinical expertise in many important and complex diseases. Our scientists are also able to draw on data about those diseases that is provided by our vast patient population; pharmaceutical companies do not have access to this type of information. Clinical trials happen right here, on our campus, proving the efficacy of therapies and saving

lives that hang in the balance. We have all the components right here, right now. The CDI is the dynamic force to make it all happen.”

Mount Sinai’s scientists are afforded the privileged view of the academic medical center—a view that constantly reminds researchers what their work is all about.

“We can’t ignore what’s going on around us at Mount Sinai, with patients close by,” said Dr. Marek Mlodzik, Chair of Developmental and Regenerative Biology and co-director of the high content screening facility, one of the core facilities that contributes to therapy discovery. “We are collaborating with doctors who are finding truly exciting new treatments that are going to help real patients. Mount Sinai researchers want to see the point where our work applies to something helpful.”

Real patients. Real therapies.

Imagine.

By Kathleen Quackenbush Spiegel,

By philip B er roll

Photography by Andrew Lichtenstein

The Quiet Revolutionary

It’s the old book/cover judgment. When you first see Ihor Lemischka, PhD—Professor of Gene and Cell Medicine at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine since 2007—in his glasses and loosefitting sweater, writing formulas on his lab windows, you might think he conforms strictly to the model of a low-key, slightly quirky academic scientist.

And you would be wrong.

Brilliant, unorthodox, and intellectually curious, Dr. Lemischka conforms to no model. And he has another job at Mount Sinai, directing a groundbreaking research program whose results could revolutionize the diagnosis and treatment of cancer, heart and liver disease, diabetes, and other life-threatening illnesses.

When he speaks of this work, his enthusiasm is palpable: “I find right now to be the most exciting time ever in my career.”

Dr. Lemischka is Director of Mount Sinai’s Black Family Stem Cell Institute, where he and his research team, working with specialists in other disciplines, are making steady progress in a cutting-edge area of stem cell studies: induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) research, which uses stem cells taken from adult patients to study the causes of genetics-rooted disease.

A scholarly yet down-to-earth presence who speaks slowly and directly, Dr. Lemischka relishes the challenge of building what he calls “a world-class stem cell institute” at Mount Sinai. And while he enjoys many aspects of being an administrator—from recruiting faculty to “mentoring young people the way I was mentored when I first started”—his greatest fulfillment comes from his research and its potential to bring tremendous benefits to the medical field.

“I wouldn’t be where I am if I weren’t really competitive,” he says, “and the more exciting a field is, the more competition there is.”

f rom a f ew Cells, a w or ld of Knowledge

In the process of iPSC research, derived from what is known as the Yamanaka technology (named for its creator, Dr. Shinya Yamanaka of Kyoto University) skin cells are removed from adult patients, and three or four genes are then introduced into the cells. The genes’ DNA “reprograms” the cells into pluripotence—meaning that they have the potential to turn into any of the 220 cell types in the human body. And because the iPS cells are genetically identical to those of the patient, they will contain the same genetic mutation that caused that person’s particular disease.

The significance of this is profound. “We now have a way to develop tools that allow us to understand the ideology of complex, genetics-based diseases,” says Dr. Lemischka, “and from there, to build a platform for better diagnostics for these diseases—and the discovery of drugs to treat them.”

Revolutionary

D R . I HOR L EM ISCH k A CON D u CT S . . GRO u ND BREA k IN G RE SEARC H. . qu IE TLY. .

In addition, Dr. Lemischka foresees a day when iPSC technology could be used to create healthy cells that could then be transplanted into patients, replacing diseased tissue in organs such as the heart.

“I’m excited about interacting with community organizations to educate the public about stem cell research— I’ve seen it work.”

“If you were to derive, say, some transplantable cells from a patient’s iPS cells and then try to put them back into the patient, because of the shared genetic identity there’s no problem of immune system rejection,” he observes. “For example, even if you were lucky enough as a researcher to get a biopsy sample of human heart tissue, you can’t grow human cardiac cells; but with iPS cells, we can make as many cardiac muscle cells as we want.”

a dvantage: s in ai

After graduating from Johns Hopkins with a BA in biology, Dr. Lemischka chose to attend the Massachusetts Institute of Technology—rather than the University of Maryland medical school, to which he had been accepted—because of the New England school’s emphasis on “basic research, which I always wanted to do.” He wound up earning a PhD from MIT, and was soon hired by the molecular biology department at Princeton—where he would remain for more than two decades.

The decision to move to Mount Sinai was not an easy one. Dr. Lemischka had become a well-respected figure at Princeton, and he and his wife, Dr. Kateri Moore—a fellow researcher whom he met at Princeton—enjoyed life in the New Jersey college town (they still have a house there, to which they return every weekend).

But Mount Sinai had one advantage. “In stem cell research, you sort of hit a glass ceiling when you don’t

have access to a medical institution or school,” he explains. “It grew to be a little frustrating because I was mostly working with mouse cells, and I really wanted to get more involved in studying human stem cells and human diseases.”

So when Dr. Lemischka was offered the directorship, he eagerly accepted—and now says, “My only regret is that I didn’t do it sooner.”

a n e ar ly b re a K t H rou g H

Not long after arriving at Mount Sinai, Dr. Lemischka had his first opportunity to put his expertise to use.

He joined with pediatric cardiologist Bruce Gelb, MD, the director of Mount Sinai’s Child Health and Development Institute, who had discovered the first gene ever associated with a common genetic disease, LEOPARD syndrome (“LEOPARD” is an acronym for the first letters of seven symptoms associated with the disease). Dr. Gelb wanted to learn more about LEOPARD’s deadliest symptom, hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM)—a cardiac condition in which heart cells become enlarged and the heart muscle thickens and grows too stiff to function properly.

Using skin cell samples from two LEOPARD patients, the researchers and their teams used the iPSC protocols to produce a limitless supply of heart cells—exact copies of those in the patients—which they found to be enlarged in the same manner as the originals.

This was a major research achievement: through iPSC technology, Drs. Lemischka and Gelb had produced one of the world’s first in vitro (often referred to as “disease in a dish”) models of cardiovascular

disease—an important advance in tackling one of the greatest challenges to global health. Their work was widely praised after they published their findings as the cover story in the June 10, 2010 issue of Nature, the world’s preeminent scientific journal.

“By getting a defective heart cell in a dish that recapitulates to a large extent—or even identically— a disease such as HCM,” Dr. Lemischka explains, “you can track the development of these heart cells and ask, ‘Where do you see the first example of something going amiss?’ From there, you can say, ‘Now let’s see if we can find small molecules that delay, or reverse, or block this first thing that’s gone wrong.’ And it’s not possible to do this in any other way.”

Since that time, Dr. Lemischka and his staff at the Black Family Stem Cell Institute—which includes his wife, who came with him from Princeton—have conducted research involving a wide range of afflictions, including cancer, diabetes, liver disease, and spinal cord injury. And Dr. Lemischka believes that even diseases affecting the brain are within the realm of possibility.

“I could imagine developing ways of treating Parkinson’s disease,” he says, “because we know quite a lot about it—we know which neurons are missing or damaged and we could make those neurons in a dish filled with stem cells. And with Alzheimer’s, to be able to study how the neurons might degenerate—in vitro, in a dish—allows you again to develop platforms for drug discoveries.”

“ e du C at ion is t H e Key”

Still, Dr. Lemischka says bluntly that iPSC research is not yet “as far advanced” as embryonic stem cell studies, still the leading venue of stem cell research. “In many ways, iPS cells closely resemble embryonic stem cells,” he notes, “but we don’t know how exact that similarity is. Before we can say, ‘These cells can replace embryonic stem cells,’ we’ll need to do in-depth comparative studies for quite a long time. We’re all very excited about iPS cells, but to jump to the conclusion and say they’re the same, and can already replace embryonic stem cell research, is way premature.”

That is why Dr. Lemischka is a strong advocate of embryonic research—and he does not shy away from addressing its main point of controversy: the extraction of cells from frozen embryos which are destroyed in the process. His irritation is evident when he speaks about this.

“If somebody’s personal moral, ethical or theological belief is that a fertilized egg, an embryo, is the same as a human being, I’m respectful of that,” he says. “But when a minority of people influences the government to dictate policy for the whole country, I feel that borders on a violation of church-state separation—which is one

of the things this country was founded on.”

Ultimately, says Dr. Lemischka, “education is the key” to changing minds. “I’m excited about interacting with community organizations to educate the public about stem cell research—I’ve seen it work,” he adds. “I’ve had experiences where I would give a half-hour talk to a group of non-scientists and people would say to me afterwards, ‘I came here very anti-embryonic stem cell research, and now I have a different opinion. You’ve changed my mind.’”

And he is certain that concrete results will also help influence public opinion: “Once there’s some cure— let’s say, a child with diabetes is cured by stem cell transplants—it then becomes a very different ballgame, because then you’d hear the outcry from the public: ‘How can you possibly deny my child this?’”

tH e n ex t l ea p f orward

For all his enthusiasm, Dr. Lemischka, ever the cautious scientist, is careful to avoid hyperbole in discussing his work. He warns against predicting quick benefits from any form of stem cell research.

“We all believe that there will be stem cell-related cures,” he says, “but we can’t with any certainty say how soon. So it’s important to create a realistic set of milestones which you can take the time to explain to the public. You don’t say something like ‘next year, we’re going to be able to cure your father’s Parkinson’s.’ Because then, inevitably, there’s a public backlash—and it’s the public that largely pays the bills, since we run in large part on federal or state money.”

However, Dr. Lemischka acknowledges that “we see amazing advances happening every day. Keep in mind that there are already stem cell cures, such as cord blood transplantation”—a stem cell therapy widely used for leukemia, sickle-cell anemia and other diseases—“where you transplant a blood-forming stem cell from a donor to a recipient.

“It’s one of the best things about being in this area, the fact that you don’t know what’s next. It’s incremental, by and large—99.9 percent of it. But every once in a while, you get something that moves the whole field forward with a leap. You can’t anticipate these things, but you have to be open to them.”

In the midst of this whirlwind of activity and advocacy, Dr. Lemischka keeps his sense of perspective by pursuing interests outside the laboratory. He enjoys listening to music, is an avid amateur photographer, and has a loyal canine companion—Coach, a yellow Labrador whose picture he keeps in his wallet.

“Coach is almost nine years old,” Dr. Lemischka says proudly. “He’s a cancer survivor, but he’s healthy.”

“Every once in a while, you get something that moves the whole field forward with a leap. You can’t anticipate these things, but you have to be open to them.”

in found translation

Or, How a collaboration between two simpatico scientists is helping to drive discovery throughout Mount Sinai’s biomedical community.

Translational medicine is the heart of Mount Sinai. Three years ago, Mount Sinai established the Experimental Therapeutics Institute (ETI), a locus for unifying the critical mass of research technologies that contribute to the discovery of new drugs and therapies. The ETI provides the scientific and technical expertise to make the newest, most effective research technologies accessible to all investigations at Mount Sinai— whether basic or clinical, large or small. This speeds the pace of discovery and pushes more promising investigations forward in the process of translation from the bench to the bedside—and to the patients who need them.

We recently had a lively conversation with Ravi Iyengar, PhD, Director of the ETI, and ETI Co-Director Ming-Ming Zhou, PhD, to discuss the importance of integrating emerging technologies into the therapy discovery process today, and about the lifesaving potential of this type of research at Mount Sinai.

so, w H at ex aC tly is t H e et i ?

DR. IYENGAR: The Experimental Therapeutics Institute is our institution-wide enterprise designed to catalyze discovery and to bring to use new therapies. It’s an engine of discovery for Mount Sinai’s biomedical community.

DR. ZHOU: The ETI is really the hub for the interactions of our investigators who have a broad interest in advancing our understanding of human biology and disease with the goal of finding new treatments. The ETI was formed to facilitate this kind of activity across all disciplines at Mount Sinai.

The ETI now includes a number of core research facilities, such as systems pharmacology and network analysis, which uses computers to help us understand if a drug compound will help or harm a patient before we even begin our research. And as the ETI evolves,

we will expand our technologies, such as our high content screening/RNAi facility, where we can screen thousands of drug compounds at the same time to see if any of them work against breast cancer cells.

DR. IYENGAR: No one research group has expertise in all areas anymore. So really, the ETI brings all of the emerging technologies to Mount Sinai’s scientific community to help them screen compounds, identify more drug targets, identify lead compounds, design therapies, and predict adverse events. It’s like the conduit through which all of the cutting-edge technologies are brought forth for therapy discovery. Through the ETI, Mount Sinai enables institutionwide collaborative ventures, but with a focus on designing new therapies—finding new therapies that work, while minimizing risk.

w H at role wi ll t H e et i pl ay in t H e ne w C en ter fo r di s Cov ery an d in novation at mo unt si nai ?

DR. ZHOU: The creation of the Center is very exciting for everyone in the ETI. The goal of the CDI is discovery and innovation, and that is the exact mission of the ETI: To accelerate discovery and innovation, especially with these core facilities. But we need to connect the dots to make a picture, so to speak. With the CDI, our capabilities are tremendously enhanced; it will enable and empower ETI technologies. So it just makes sense.

DR. IYENGAR: The older model of therapeutic discovery at an academic medical center (and not just at Mount Sinai) was that a scientist like Ming-Ming or myself would make a discovery—find new knowledge— and write a paper. Or a doctor would make a chance observation in the clinic and would write a paper. Somebody else would then find those papers and do something with them—develop a treatment— or they might not. So as a clinician–researcher or basic scientist, you’d put your discovery out there and let it be, and hope that someone takes it to the next level to develop a therapy for patients. But here at Mount Sinai, with the creation of the CDI and the integration of an expanded ETI, the process is much more proactive. We discover new knowledge about human health and disease, but we will also use that knowledge to do something useful for patient care.

People respond differently to treatments. So moving toward personalized medicine, you need to go from structure, to systems, to patient.

H ow do t H e ma ny di fferent di s C ip lines in volved Com e to get H er an d Col laborate ?

DR. ZHOU: We collaborate all the time—in fact, all of the research activities in the institute are collaborative projects. We are in constant communication about what we do and about the capabilities we have within the ETI that can help advance various research projects. We also host symposiums to help educate the research community at Mount Sinai about emerging technologies that could move therapy discovery projects forward. These efforts have resulted in new research projects and in many different—sometimes unexpected—collaborations between investigators. Communication is key to collaboration in therapeutic discovery.

DR. IYENGAR: Essentially, the ETI serves as a bridge connecting academic laboratories and clinical practice.

C an yo u gi ve us an ex ample of a Col laboration t H at is C ur rently un derway ?

DR. IYENGAR: There are many good examples, but here is one: We’re working with Doctors Mike Marin, a surgeon, and Erwin Bottinger, who specializes in personalized medicine, to understand the biology of aneurysms within families. Even though people within a family have the same disease genes, different people in a family get different kinds of aneurysms— varying degrees of severity. We’re trying to understand how genomics can lead to drug discovery, and to determine whether or not we can develop a test for patients in a particular family to see who the disease is likely to develop more aggressively in, and which people will respond to particular treatments.

yo u bot H obviously love yo ur s C ie ntifi C wo r K, an d en J oy wo r K in g to get H er . w H y di d yo u bot H de C id e to ta K e on le aders H ip rol es in t H e et i ?

DR. ZHOU: We’re excited because CDI provides the forum by which we can meld our research with collaborative ventures and bring it to immediate use in patient care. It’s not that we don’t discover new knowledge, because we do that as well—but there is an added dimensionality of making the new knowledge that we discover useful within the next five to ten years—and that we would be doing it ourselves.

DR. IYENGAR: Well, Ming-Ming is an expert in understanding the structure of proteins, which is critical for drug discovery. There are very promising drugs for cancer and some types of addictive disorders in development that are based on his discoveries. You could say that Ming-Ming is a pioneer in a field called structural epigenetics. Don’t be humble, Ming-Ming!

DR. ZHOU: Yes, the field of epigenetics—the study of how the genes we are born with express themselves and change over time—holds great promise. I feel that

if we can understand the mechanisms of epigenetics, and develop a chemical compound that modulates this process, then we have meaningful tools—not only to study mechanisms, but also to develop new treatments for some challenging diseases, such as brain disorders.

Going forward, we need to look at the system-wide effect, which Ravi talked about before: We can work together on the systems-level issues related to human biology and treatments. There is not just one single target; there is a pathway and a network that we need to understand in order to develop effective and safe therapies. It’s very important to look at the effects of new treatments at a broader, systems level. This is where Ravi is the expert!

DR. IYENGAR: People respond differently to treatments. So moving toward personalized medicine, you need to go from structure, to systems, to patient. The ETI provides the scientific support and expertise to do this—and to generate therapies here at Mount Sinai for things like aneurysms, cancers, chronic pain, and connective tissue disorders.

w H y is mo unt si nai we ll- su ited to dr ive t H er apeuti C di s Cov ery t H rou g H t H e C di , us ing t H e te CH no logies of t H e et i ?

DR. ZHOU: We are an old hospital and a new medical school. We’ve always been deeply involved in developing new methods and therapies, and driving

the frontiers of medicine. It’s a long-standing goal, but there are new ways of doing this every few years.

DR. IYENGAR: What’s unique about Mount Sinai is that the hospital and medical school are so well-integrated. This makes it easier for an enterprise like the ETI to be highly successful. It’s not that it can’t be done at other places, but in most cases, a school and a medical center are entirely different structures with different management, making it very difficult for something like the ETI to be highly successful. This is what sets Mount Sinai apart.

so H ow do yo u fe el ab out t H e fu ture of t H er apeuti C di s Cov ery at mo unt si nai ?

DR. IYENGAR: I love what we are doing because we never have a dull moment. We are now at a point where all of our knowledge about the little parts of human biology is coming together. We have a real opportunity right now to make discoveries that can treat many of the world’s most complex diseases, like cancer, psychiatric disorders, and others. This is a particularly exciting time.

DR. ZHOU: As a scientist, you want to see how your discovery makes a difference in society. If you are working here at Mount Sinai, you obviously really care about patients; you want to develop new treatments. So if we can translate our discoveries in research into better treatments, there’s nothing better than that for scientists.

As a scientist, you want to see how your discovery makes a difference in society.

HIGH Hopes

By Tr A vis Adkins

In Mount Sinai’s high-content screening facility, vast amounts of possible drug candidates are narrowed down rapidly into the most promising prospects through a state-of-the-art system capable of testing hundreds of thousands of compounds simultaneously.

“We take single experiments and scale them up so you can look at 100,000 chemicals all in parallel, find the ones that are good, and eliminate the ones that don’t work,” says Dan Felsenfeld, PhD, who is co-director of the facility along with Marek Mlodzik, PhD. Among other things, the technology allows researchers to analyze a huge number of variables. “For example, we might have a drug that makes a cancer cell sick, but that doesn’t actually kill the cell because

other pathways are compensating,” explains Dr. Felsenfeld. “It’s like on the subway, if you can’t get uptown on the 4 train, you take the 6 train instead. It’s slower, but you still get to your destination. In our screens, we can go in and silence genes while at the same time adding compounds. We’re knocking out the backup pathway, and identifying the other critical components involved in a diseased cell.” As large as those numbers are, Felsenfeld’s and Mlodzik’s ambitions are larger still. “There’s no limit to the types of diseases we can explore by using this technology,” says Mlodzik. The facility is currently undergoing an expansion that will greatly increase its efficiency and productivity.

piCtured

Each of the hundreds of dispensers shown here holds different prospective drug compounds that are added simultaneously to a plate containing an equal amount of human cells. The plate is then moved to a data processing unit that analyzes the entire range of compound and cell interactions in a matter of hours. Photographs by Matthew Septimus

When the high-content screening facility’s newest piece of equipment—pictured here—is brought online, the lab will be able to do almost 50 times the volume of work it currently handles.

In two studies, a master investigator examines old diseases through a new lens: pregnancy.

A normal human pregnancy lasts nine months; it’s both miraculous and comprehensible, and with its successful completion, we generally turn our attention to a new life. But Thomas Moran, PhD believes that pregnancy’s mysteries may hold the key to major changes for generations: The results of Mount Sinai’s Viral Immunity in Pregnancy Studies (VIP), which Dr. Moran directs, could influence our understanding—and, ultimately, the treatment—of autoimmune disorders and many other diseases for lifetimes to come.

“It’s amazing what our research is showing about how the immune system suppresses immunity but continues to fight off disease in healthy pregnant women. Our findings have major implications for the larger health dialogue,” says Thomas Moran, PhD, Professor of Microbiology and lead investigator of the team conducting the VIP Studies. “When we understand precisely how these mechanisms work, we can replicate them in the lab in order to develop new treatments for autoimmune disease that may have more efficacy with far fewer side effects than treatments currently in use.”

st udies t H at Con tradi C t

Dr. Moran is the lead investigator on two innovative VIP studies: one with 60 women, exploring the repression of immunity that is necessary for successful pregnancy, and the second with 300 women, investigating the optimal time for administering influenza vaccines during pregnancy. What fascinates and inspires

researchers like Dr. Moran, in part, are the apparent contradictions in the results of these studies.

On the one hand, despite the fact that women are far more susceptible than men to MS, a chronic disease of the central nervous system, symptoms of MS are typically suppressed during pregnancy, particularly in the last trimester.

Yet at the same time, pregnant women are much more likely to suffer severe infection with agents such as influenza, malaria, or listeria as a result of the suppression of some aspects of immunity. However, in the VIP study the investigators have observed that other parts of the immune response are strengthened to compensate for those lost.

So why does the immune system protect pregnant women from the effects of a disease already expressed in their bodies, such as MS, yet fail to protect them from infectious diseases that attack as “foreign invaders” (viruses)? The drive to answer these questions is at the heart of Dr. Moran’s innovative research. 

Until the VI P st udy, we ha d no evidence to su pport de cisions

about wh en to va ccinate. Th is is an im portant br eakthrough.

—Thomas Moran, PhD

blo CK ing t H e me mory re sponse

As the first VIP study concludes, Dr. Moran and his team will embark on a new project that looks comprehensively at sets of cells, rather than individual cells as has typically been done, to investigate how a pregnancy blocks the “memory response” that causes the symptoms of MS.

The immune system responds to pathogens (bacteria, viruses, or any foreign invader) on two levels, either with a “naïve” or new response to a harmful substance or process, or with a response based on the memory of a past expression (incidence) of an illness or disease in the body. Demonstrating how the memory response is blocked for MS in pregnant women, repressing symptoms of the disease can have significant consequences for translational

medicine—the rapid acceleration of basic science research results to effective treatments that improve patients’ lives—influencing potential therapies for MS and other autoimmune disorders.

“Research naturally involves a lot of educated guesswork,” acknowledges Dr. Moran. “Often the most useful findings result from an incorrect assumption.”

That’s the case with the second VIP project, a vaccine study with significant large-scale implications for infectious disease. It was assumed that the safest, most beneficial time to administer an influenza vaccine to a pregnant woman was early in pregnancy, before the more profound changes to immunity occur. Dr. Moran’s study has shown instead that, surprisingly, the third trimester is just as good as—or even better than—an early time to administer the vaccine.

“Until the VIP study, we had no evidence to support decisions about when to vaccinate. This is an important breakthrough,” says Dr Moran. “Physicians will be able to vaccinate pregnant women against influenza late in pregnancy with the confidence that it will fully protect them from a potentially devastating occurrence of the flu.”

The research is significant on multiple—and potentially far-reaching—levels. Discovering how the immune system battles infectious diseases in the late stages of pregnancy will help researchers develop vaccines, as well as other treatments, to combat infectious diseases in other populations.

Collaborating to wi n t H e wa r

After more than 25 years as a passionate microbiologist, Dr. Moran still considers infectious disease to be among the most fascinating and compelling areas of biomedical research. “Bacteria and viruses almost always win their individual battles,” he says. “They manage to accomplish what they set out to do. They spread to a host and then find another. And there are billions of them. I think we can win the war. But we have to gain a better understanding of how bacteria and viruses trick the immune system in each separate battle. The VIP studies will help us learn about the immune system’s natural abilities to fight disease.”

Dr. Moran is quick to point out that Mount Sinai has long been a leader in infectious diseases (“Mount Sinai is often the first place people think of for influenza studies,” he affirms), and that the interdisciplinary, collaborative approach in which he is engaged is a hallmark of Mount Sinai’s success. His own interest in infectious diseases was inspired by—and he feels strongly about recognizing— numerous mentors and colleagues, including Jerome L. Schulman, MD, Professor Emeritus of Microbiology; Peter Palese, MD, Professor and Chair of Microbiology; and Adolfo García Sastre, Professor of Medicine and Professor of Microbiology, Infectious Diseases. VIP studies are a collaborative effort between The Departments of Microbiology and Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Science. Dr. Moran’s primary collaborators include Dr. Rhoda Sperling, Professor Gynecology, Obstetrics, and Professor of Medicine, Infectious Diseases; Dr. Stephanie Engel, Associate Professor, Preventive Medicine; Dr. Thomas Kraus, Assistant Professor of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Science and Professor of Microbiology; and Dr. Sylvan Wallenstein, Professor, Preventive Medicine.

“Medical students from around the world are interested in infectious diseases and perceive Mount Sinai as a leader in this area of research,” says Dr. Moran. “We have impressive young investigators in our lab from China, Germany, Chile, Denmark, and, of course, from across the United States.”

In many ways, Dr. Moran retains the enthusiasm, optimism, and drive of his young protégées. “I began my career as a ‘pure immunologist’ working with animal models,” he says. “I am so pleased to be working now with a true, unmitigated disease model on research projects with human participants. My goal is to contribute to our understanding of pathogen/ host interactions (immunological responses) in a way that can have an enduring impact on medical science and, most importantly, on individual patients’ lives.”

MONOCLONAL ANTIBODIES

Dr. Moran has devoted much of the last decade and a half to influential work on the development of monoclonal antibodies (known as mAbs or Mabs), proteins that protect against invasions by pathogenic microbes, such as bacteria and viruses. It is this work that will be an essential component of the Center for Discovery and Innovation.

Four of the top ten drugs in the U.S. are Mabs, accounting for more than $30 billion in sales in 2009. There are at least 250 Mabs in various stages of development across the country. It is expected that by 2014, four of the top six drugs sold in the U.S. will be a Mab.

It is expected that by 2014, four of the top six drugs sold in the u.S. will be a Mab.

Antibodies are unique proteins—there as many as 100 million different types of them in the human body—made by our own immune systems and used both for diagnostic purposes (tests for influenza, pregnancy, and rapid strep, for example) and to treat a variety of conditions and diseases. Mabs are used to identify and neutralize foreign objects in the body by targeting specific disease cells and eliminating them, often with minimal side effects. They are used extensively both in basic scientific research in and in experimental models.

Mount Sinai’s new Center for Discovery and Innovation places Mabs at the heart of the new drug process. Dr. Moran’s lab has commercialized dozens of Mabs for use in both basic research. Under the auspices of the Center for Discovery and Innovation, the Mabs will be “humanized” so that they can be useful for translational studies involving humans.

Research scientists and physicians utilize Mabs to study and treat cancer, infectious diseases, cardiovascular disease, brain disorders, immune disorders, and allergies. Essential to advances in all aspects of microbiology, Mabs can be utilized to help researchers develop better vaccines that protect the body from a wide range of diseases. Mabs have been shown to be effective in slowing the progression of HIV, blocking some of the inflammatory responses that cause cardiovascular (heart) disease, and some types of the Herpes virus.

Dr. Moran’s pioneering work with Mabs has had a significant impact on— and promises great potential for—the development of effective new research and resulting therapies that can significantly improve the quality of patients lives struggling with a broad range of conditions and diseases. “With Mabs, we have the opportunity both to improve quality of life for patients and to contribute to major advancements in research,” affirms Dr. Moran.

Crystals: $4.5 Million for Endowed Genomics Professorship

“ We believe the Institute can help unlock many of the medical mysteries we currently face, and we are honored to be a part of that.”

Trustees Jean C. and James W. Crystal, who have supported a variety of initiatives over the years, recently committed a gift of $4.5 million to Mount Sinai. The gift will establish and name an endowed academic professorship for the Director of the Genomics Institute at Mount Sinai, to be known as the Jean C. and James W. Crystal Professor of Genomics. The Genomics Institute is a translational research hub focusing on genetics and proteomics for the Mount Sinai community. The Institute applies state-of-the-art technologies and expertise to help

investigators define genetic risk, identify harmful and protective variants, and explain pathogenic mechanisms in human diseases.

“The support of the Crystals allows Mount Sinai to bring the best talent and leadership on board at the Genomics Institute,” said Dennis S. Charney, Anne and Joel Ehrenkranz Dean of Mount Sinai School of Medicine. “This will strengthen not only the Genomics Institute, but all of the other translational research institutes that will be working in conjunction with it.”

“Jean and I believe strongly in the promise of genomics,” said Mr. Crystal. “We believe the Institute can help unlock many of the medical mysteries we currently face, and we are honored to be a part of that.”

James Crystal has been a Mount Sinai trustee since 1982; Jean Crystal joined the Boards of Trustees in 1996.

Macy Foundation Supports Patient-Centered Student Program

Mount Sinai’s InterACT program is a model for developing new insights into chronic illness.

A three-year, $417,276 grant from the Josiah Macy, Jr. Foundation will allow Mount Sinai School of Medicine to launch a program through which students will spend a year immersed in treating patients with chronic illnesses and learning about the unique challenges those patients face.

The Interclerkship Ambulatory Care Track (InterACT) program places select third-year medical students at the center of the care of patients within their community during a year-long clinical experience grounded in the foundations of ambulatory medicine and chronic illness care. The program cultivates students’ commitment to the practice of longitudinal patient-centered care, helping them learn how to navigate health care systems while addressing the social, economic, and cultural factors that have an impact on chronic illness care in an urban setting. Through these experiences, students will develop a deeper appreciation of chronic illness, advocacy, and the plight of the medically disenfranchised.

“Our school priorities for innovation in education and training are primary care, translational research, and global health,” said David Muller, MD, Dean for Medical Education and Associate Professor and Chair of Medical Education at Mount Sinai School of Medicine. “These are society’s three areas of greatest need and InterACT will push us to the forefront of

schools that are trying to train the next generation of physicians who will deliver equal healthcare to all.

“The generosity of the Josiah Macy, Jr. Foundation will not only provide the resources to help support our work; it will elevate the prominence of our efforts to address the need for leaders in primary care and help make InterACT a model that other schools will emulate,” said Dr. Muller.

“Our school priorities for innovation in education and training are primary care, translational research, and global health.” – David Muller, MD

Creative Giving

Trustee Frederick A. Klingenstein and his wife, Sharon, contributed $9.28 million this fall to Mount Sinai, through the donation of a work from their private collection by world-renowned sculptor Alberto Giacometti. The sculpture, “Femme de Venise V,” was auctioned off at Christie’s on November 3. “I’m pleased that the sale of this beautiful work of art will support equally creative works of medicine,” Mr. Klingenstein said. The Klingensteins were honored at the annual Noble Deeds Society Dinner on October 12th.

The Mount Sinai Medical Center welcomed more than 200 guests to the Noble Deeds Society Dinner at the New York Public Library on October 12. The event recognized those donors who have given more than $1 million dollars to Mount Sinai and honored Trustee Frederick A. Klingenstein and his wife, Sharon, with the Noble Deeds Society Honorary Award.

Pictured: 1. Frederick A. Klingenstein. 2. Harriet Aufses and Arthur Aufses, MD. 3. Maurice and Barbara Deane. 4. Trustees John A. Levin and Richard Ravitch with Kathleen Doyle. 5. Amy Klingenstein Pollinger and Kenneth D. Pollinger.

6. Trustee James S. Tisch, Chair of the Campaign for Mount Sinai.

More than 170 members of the Mount Sinai community gathered at the annual Boards of Trustees dinner at the Metropolitan Club in New York City on December 2 to celebrate a year of outstanding achievements and to pay tribute to those Trustees who have served the Medical Center for more than 25 years. “The longevity of Trustee support is part of what makes this

Dedication of New Cohen Antepartum Unit

Alexandra Cohen, who along with her husband, Steven, gave a generous gift through their foundation to create a separate antepartum unit at Mount Sinai, joined President and Chief Executive Officer Kenneth L. Davis, MD, and other VIPs on September 27 for the official dedication of the new unit.

A Fashionable Cause

The 23rd annual Ob/Gyn Fashion Show and Luncheon was held on December 8 at The Waldorf=Astoria. Chaired by Babette Goodman Cohen and her daughter, Lisa Liman, and Raymond Z. Sandler, MD and his daughter, Brette Sandler, the event raised funds toward renovating facilities for the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Science as well as establishing a named chair for Carmel J. Cohen, MD.

President Davis on Health Care Reform

Members of the President’s Leadership Circle got an insider’s view on health care reform legislation, its impact on hospitals, and the future of health care policy during a presentation by President Davis on November 1.

Pictured: (from left) Seth Glickenhaus, Professor and Chairman of the Department of Ophthalmology Douglas Jabs, MD, President Davis and Sarah Glickenhaus.

ALUMNI

An Activist at Home and Abroad

From Mount Sinai to West Africa, Dr. Jeffrey Freed works to help people in need.

“Fear of debt is a major reason [students in need] shy away from pursuing any medical education.”

– Dr. Jeffrey Freed

Jeffrey S. Freed, MD began his medical residency at Mount Sinai after graduating from public institutions where he had paid little or no tuition. “I had the good fortune to leave medical school with absolutely no debt,” he says.

And Dr. Freed—a colorectal surgeon and Associate Clinical Professor of Surgery at Mount Sinai Medical School—has tried to aid students who are not so fortunate. As a member of the Mount Sinai Alumni Association, serving as Board President from 2001 to 2003, he has worked to make medical education affordable for those students “so that the onerous burden of debt does not impede their careers.”

This kind of activism is why Dr. Freed was awarded the Dr. Sidney Grossman Distinguished Humanitarian Award at the Mount Sinai Alumni Annual Meeting and Award Presentation on February 16, 2011. This is the Alumni’s newest award, established in recognition of Dr. Grossman’s generous bequest and first awarded during the 2002 Alumni Weekend. The award honors those who, like Dr. Grossman, have shown extraordinary service and inspirational leadership to others.

The accomplishments of Dr. Freed, who says he will be “humbled” to receive the award, are both local and international: Since 2008, he has led an annual Mount Sinai medical mission to the West African nation of Liberia—helping to rebuild that country’s healthcare system, which had been shattered by decades of civil war.

‘A Full-Court Press’ to Hel P Medi C A l s t udents

While he served as Alumni Association Board President, Dr. Freed partnered with his predecessor, Dr. Avi Barbasch, and with Mount Sinai’s Development Office to create a fundraising network of alumni and other donors. Dr. Freed has also worked with the Association’s chapters in other parts of the country to encourage alumni involvement in fundraising, primarily to endow scholarships. In addition, an alumni scholarship was recently donated in Dr. Freed’s name—“for some student(s) in need, with exceptional credentials,” he explains, “who would receive $50,000 a year, for five years.”

The need for such scholarships, says Dr. Freed, is urgent. “In a survey, we found that debt is a tremendous factor in medical students’ choosing their specialty training upon graduation,” he notes, “and that for minority students, fear of debt is a major reason that they shy away from pursuing any medical education. This led me to believe that a full-court press for raising money for scholarships was really necessary.”

r e building F r o M t H e As H e s o F WA r

Dr. Freed faced even greater challenges on his first mission to Liberia. “There were between 35 and 40 Liberian doctors left in the country,” he recalls. “That’s about one doctor for every 100,000 people.”

Working at two local hospitals, Dr. Freed and his team of 16 physicians and seven medical students treated close to 200 patients for conditions including cancer, hernias, and cataracts, trained local health providers, and set up a chemotherapy suite.

Dr. Freed subsequently led two more missions, in 2009 and 2010, and is currently planning another for early 2011. In that time, he has seen significant progress.

“Their X-ray and sonogram capabilities have increased remarkably,” he says. “Nursing protocols have been put in so women

MssM: dC

The first gathering of the Washington, D.C. regional chapter of the Mount Sinai Alumni Association brought together more than 40 alumni to network, catch up, and hear Dean David Muller talk about recent developments at the School of Medicine. For more information about regional chapters and events in your own area, please contact Stephen DeSalvo at stephen.desalvo@mssm.edu or (212) 241-4694.

“ There were between 35 and 40 Liberian doctors left in the country. That’s about one doctor for every 100,000 people.”

in labor are more closely monitored. These are relatively simple, basic programs—and they are sustainable by the people there.”

Whether at home or abroad, as physician, educator, or fundraiser, Dr. Freed is motivated by the same sense of compassion that has inspired his medical career.

“We are physicians to really help people,” he says. “That is the primary goal.”

– Philip Berroll

Message from the Alumni President

Martin Goldstein, MD ’73

i am concluding two years as your alumni president, an experience that has been enjoyable, rewarding, educational, and illuminating. i am proud that we are taking a 21st-century approach to accomplish our 19th-century mission of fostering lifelong relationships, encouraging scholarship in the medical center, and improving quality of life for students and house staff. Providing scholarship funding for medical students is among our primary missions, and we do it two ways: through our life membership scholarship fund and our alumni endowed scholarship fund. at a time when the average graduation debt of a medical student is $150,000, our support will help keep MSSM in its world recognized position as one of the finest places to learn the art and science of medicine by attracting the best applicants in the country. in the last two years, we have made new efforts to strengthen connection. we launched www.mountsinaiconnections.com, a social networking site for our medical, graduate school, and hospital alumni; the site also gives you links to the “Find a Sinai-trained doctor” network, our online alumni merchandise store, mentoring for graduating students

applying for residencies, and access to the alumni association, the medical center, and friends and classmates. the association has organized regional alumni clubs in south Florida, connecticut, and new Jersey. we are also launching clubs in westchester, nassau, and Suffolk counties, and—as part of our plan to make the alumni association a national organization—in washington, dc, chicago, and Los angeles.

alumni weekend 2011 is april 1–3, and begins Friday with alumni education day and the old guard reception and reunion class dinners. the Saturday program includes “Medical education in the 21st century” and the dinner dance and Jacobi Medallion presentation at the Pierre, while Sunday takes us back to the Museum of natural History. Please come for all or any part of the weekend.

the annual alumni Golf and tennis outing—open to the entire Mount Sinai family—is coming up on May 10 in new Jersey. watch for location details.

i want to thank drs. Jeffrey Laitman, Lyris Schonholtz, Jonathan Schiff, and elliot rayfield, who served as officers with me; together, we also extend our appreciation to dr. Kenneth davis and dr dennis charney for their support and assistance with our mission.

Alumni Weekend

Mark your calendars now for Alumni Weekend, April 1–3, 2011. The weekend kicks off on Friday with Alumni Education Day, which features a great lineup of seminars in medicine, surgery, ob/gyn, and urology; programs in PowerPoint and Pubmed; and a “social networking 101” course for anyone interested in learning how to use popular social media Web sites such as Facebook. The seminars will be followed by an Old Guard reception, paying tribute to alumni who completed their training before 1980, and Anniversary Class Dinners honoring graduates from classes ending in 1 and 6. Saturday features a fascinating look at “Medical Education in the 21st Century,” followed by the Alumni Dinner Dance at The Pierre, at which the 2011 Jacobi Medallion will be presented to Eric M. Genden, MD, ’92; Anthony Squire, MD, ’78; David S. Mendelson, MD; Pedro Pasik, MD; and David Muller, MD. The weekend is capped off on Sunday by our popular “Meet Your Ancestors” event at the Museum of Natural History.

You are welcome to join us for all or part of the weekend. We hope to see you there!

For more information, please contact Stephen DeSalvo, Director of Alumni Relations, at (212) 241-4694 or stephen.desalvo@mssm.edu