“This is a great recognition from my peers,” Adolfo García-Sastre, PhD, says, “not just for me, but for the achievements of all past and present members of my laboratory.”
Adolfo García-Sastre, PhD, Director of the Global Health and Emerging Pathogens Institute, and the Irene and Dr. Arthur M. Fishberg Professor of Microbiology, and Medicine (Infectious Diseases) at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, has been elected to the National Academy of Sciences.
The honor recognizes Dr. García-Sastre’s outstanding contributions to his field, which include developing reverse genetics techniques that revealed the molecular basis of the influenza virus, led to the recreation of the extinct pandemic influenza virus of 1918, and paved the way for improved influenza virus vaccines. His laboratory also defined the role of influenza nonstructural protein 1 (NS1) in dampening the body’s immune response. Dr. García-Sastre says his laboratory’s overarching goal is “to better understand how viruses cause disease, leading to improved prophylactic and therapeutic interventions.” It is working on a universal influenza vaccine that does not require yearly modifications, and on viral therapeutics that target cancerous tumors but do not affect healthy cells.
“Dr. García-Sastre’s research represents the frontier of his field,” says 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. “The discoveries made by him and others at Mount Sinai will result in powerful new means to combat deadly viruses that affect millions of people and lay the groundwork for discovery of viruses yet unknown.”
Mount Sinai now has three faculty members in the National Academy of Sciences: Dr. García-Sastre; Maria Iandolo New, MD, Professor of Pediatrics, Medicine (Endocrinology), and Genetic and Genomic Sciences; and Peter Palese, PhD, Horace W. Goldsmith Professor and Chair of Microbiology, and Professor of Medicine (Infectious Diseases).
“This is a great recognition from my peers,” Dr. García-Sastre says, “not just for me, but for the achievements of all past and present members of my laboratory.”