Dennis S. Charney, MD, delivered the State of the School Address.
A sense of accomplishment pervaded the 2018 Convocation Ceremony, which honored 13 renowned faculty members and celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. The event, held on Thursday, October 4, marked the beginning of the academic year and featured the annual State of the School Address by Dennis S. Charney, MD, Anne and Joel Ehrenkranz Dean, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, and President for Academic Affairs, Mount Sinai Health System.
“We are reaching new heights,” Dr. Charney said as he welcomed the honorees, their families and friends, faculty, staff , and Mount Sinai benefactors who filled Goldwurm Auditorium. “We have never had more endowed chairs than we are awarding tonight, which I think speaks for the health of our medical school and our Health System.” The honorees received named professorships in fields including computational biology, genetics and genomic sciences, personalized medicine, palliative care, geriatrics, therapeutics discovery, ophthalmology, and neuroscience.
Among its many accomplishments, Dr. Charney said, the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai received $348.5 million in National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding in fiscal year 2018—a 9.4 percent increase over the prior year—ranking the school No. 12 in the nation. “We also rank No. 4 in research dollars per investigator, which means our individual faculty are among the best in the country,” Dr. Charney said, citing figures from the Association of American Medical Colleges.
The School of Medicine has the largest Graduate Medical Education program in the nation, with more than 2,500 residents and fellows. Its master’s and PhD programs are growing in size and quality, and Mount Sinai is launching a biomedical data science program, “which is consistent with our overall commitment to be one of the best places in the country, if not the world, in genomic and data science,” Dr. Charney said. The matriculating class of medical students has a median grade point average of 3.84 (out of 4.0), and the Flex Med admissions program helped make it a well-rounded group. “We are always looking to recruit students who represent the spectrum of talents in America,” he said, “whether they major in humanities or hard science or have experience in the military.”
Among other high points:
Mount Sinai Innovation Partners, which translates research findings into health care products and services, generated 211 patents, 144 inventions, and 53 new licenses and options for the use of research. In addition, the new i3 Asset Accelerator funded four start-up projects based on Mount Sinai research, with seven proposals now under review.
The Mount Sinai Doctors Faculty Practice—the largest in the nation—had 7.8 percent higher revenues compared with 2017, and the number of calls to its Access Center rose to 3.48 million in 2018 from 2.67 million in 2017.
Mount Sinai, for the second consecutive year, was ranked No. 1 by DiversityInc magazine among hospitals and health care systems in the nation for excellence in diversity management and best practices. In addition, the Patricia S. Levinson Center for Multicultural and Community Affairs marked its 20th anniversary.
The Office of Well-Being and Resilience, led by Jonathan A. Ripp, MD, MPH, Senior Associate Dean, was created to support the well-being of students, staff, and faculty.
Mount Sinai launched an online series of articles in partnership with Scientific American Custom Media that marks the 50th anniversary of the Icahn School of Medicine and takes a sweeping look at research and innovation fueling the next generation of treatments.
Looking ahead, Dr. Charney said, “Our guiding principles are to take advantage of the size and excellence of our Health System, to have unrivaled excellence in our medical and graduate education, and to anticipate new areas of research. We developed a strategic plan in 2017, and we are now implementing that plan in 2018.” The latest initiatives include renovation at 3 East 101st Street that will create a 45,000-square-foot facility for data science and technology. In a comprehensive capital campaign, the Mount Sinai Health System is seeking to raise $1.5 billion or more to fund projects, including a Life Science Center at 102nd Street and Madison Avenue.
Among its research priorities, the School of Medicine is advancing immunology by exploring therapies that target cancer, heart disease, diabetes, and brain disorders. It also is making a major investment in precision medicine. “This is a big initiative of the NIH,” Dr. Charney said, “and Mount Sinai will lead the way” with the advantages of a large and diverse patient population and expertise in genomics, big data, supercomputing, and bioinformatics.
Marta Filizola, PhD, left, the Sharon and Frederick Klingenstein/ Nathan Kase, MD Professor, and Dean of the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, with Terry A. Krulwich, PhD, a pioneering predecessor in both roles.
Dr. Charney took a moment to recognize a “legendary leader,” Terry A. Krulwich, PhD, Professor Emeritus of Pharmacological Sciences, and Dean of the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences from 1981 to 2002—one of the first women in the nation to fill this role. Dr. Krulwich, who recently retired, was a mentor and role model, and a groundbreaking bacteriologist who was continuously funded by the NIH for 40 years. Dr. Charney thanked her for decades of service to Mount Sinai, and she was acknowledged with lasting applause.
“I think we can be very proud of what the School of Medicine has become in just 50 years,” said Peter W. May, Chairman, Boards of Trustees, Mount Sinai Health System. “It is one of the nation’s top medical schools, in which we are training bright, creative, and innovative doctors. But we are also engaged in great medical research that generates new insights, diagnostics, and treatments.”
Kenneth L. Davis, MD, President and Chief Executive Officer, Mount Sinai Health System, noted these achievements and also urged the honorees to keep in sight the school’s core values, such as putting patients first, serving everyone who needs care regardless of their ability to pay, collaborating in the lab, and making discoveries that improve the lives of patients. “Fifty years ago, when I came to Mount Sinai as a medical student, I came to be a physician-scientist,” Dr. Davis said. “But the longer I have been here, the more I realized that my job was not just writing papers. It was not just getting millions of dollars in grants. It was about what would be left behind, what was lasting. My job was to be a steward of this institution—of its legacy and its heritage. That was my responsibility, and now it is yours.”
The Convocation Honorees
Front row, from left: Amy S. Kelley, MD, MSHS; Jian Jin, PhD; Ethylin Wang Jabs, MD; Marta Filizola, PhD; Kenneth S. Boockvar, MD, MS; Schahram Akbarian, MD, PhD; and Dennis S. Charney, MD. Back row, from left: Paul A. Slesinger, PhD; Eric Schadt, PhD; Rachel Saunders-Pullman, MD, MPH, MS; Richard B. Rosen, MD; Adam A. Margolin, PhD; Ruth Loos, PhD; Andrew B. Leibowitz, MD; and Peter W. May.
Schahram Akbarian, MD, PhD, Mount Sinai Professor in Psychiatric Epigenomics
Kenneth S. Boockvar, MD, MS, Anna A. Greenwall Professor of Geriatrics and Adult Development
Marta Filizola, PhD, Sharon and Frederick Klingenstein/Nathan Kase, MD Professorship
Ethylin Wang Jabs, MD, Mount Sinai Professor in Developmental Genetics
Jian Jin, PhD, Mount Sinai Professor in Therapeutics Discovery
Amy S. Kelley, MD, MSHS, Hermann Merkin Professor in Palliative Care
Andrew B. Leibowitz, MD, Mount Sinai Professor in Perioperative Care
Ruth Loos, PhD, Charles Bronfman Professor in Personalized Medicine
Adam A. Margolin, PhD, Jean C. and James W. Crystal Professor of Genetics and Genomic Sciences
Richard B. Rosen, MD, Belinda Bingham Pierce and Gerald G. Pierce, MD Distinguished Chair of Ophthalmology
Rachel Saunders-Pullman, MD, MPH, MS, Bachmann-Strauss Professor
Eric Schadt, PhD, Mount Sinai Professor in Predictive Health and Computational Biology
Paul A. Slesinger, PhD, Lillian and Henry M. Stratton Professor of Neuroscience