Ming-Ming Zhou, PhD
Co-Director, Drug Discovery Institute
Dr. Harold and Golden Lamport Professorship in Physiology and Biophysics
Professor and Chair, Department of Pharmacological Sciences
Professor, Department of Oncological Sciences
Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai

“Mount Sinai is really my scientific home,” says Ming-Ming Zhou, PhD, one of nine accomplished physicians and researchers who received the 2019 Jacobi Medallion—one of Mount Sinai’s highest awards. “It has inspired me to do things that I did not expect before.”

His research interest is directed at better understanding of the basic principles that govern epigenetic regulation of gene transcription in human biology of health and diseases. Dr. Zhou was elected as a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2012.

“I trained in chemistry, I was trying to see how I can apply chemistry to make a difference,” says Dr. Zhou. “Epigenetics is the study of changes in gene expression and could lead to the development of new therapeutics for a number of diseases including cancer. That’s what we are trying to focus on.”

“Dr. Zhou’s own laboratory is developing new drugs for the treatment of cancer using novel techniques involving gene transcription,” says Dennis S. Charney, MD, Anne and Joel Ehrenkranz Dean of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and President for Academic Affairs for the Mount Sinai Health System. “He’s also the co-director of our drug discovery institute, which supports the research in other departments that are going to lead to new therapeutic approaches to cancer and heart disease and neurological disorders.”

Dr. Zhou’s research has had a transformative impact in epigenetic drug discovery in the pharmaceutical industry.

“We always tend to start a new project by asking some very basic questions, such as how cells sense and respond to physiological and environmental cues. One of our early discoveries has turned out to be the foundation for a new class of epigenetics drugs,” says Dr. Zhou. “We also discovered a family of proteins that play a very important role…This discovery has paved the way for us to develop new therapeutic treatments for inflammatory bowel diseases and multiple sclerosis.”

“What I set out to do is still important to me, which is truly develop new medicines to help patients,” he says. “After 22 years at Mount Sinai, I see this aspiration is more likely to be within reach.”

Adds Kelley Yan, MD, PhD, Dorothy L. and Daniel H. Silberberg Assistant Professor of Medicine, Columbia Center for Human Development, Department of Medicine; Department of Genetics and Development, Columbia University Medical Center: “What’s much more important than what we do with our own two hands is the legacy that we leave behind and those we’ve trained. He has taught by example, and he has really paved the way for a generation of scientists like myself.”

Daniel Maklansky, MD, MSH ’62
Radiologist, New York Medical Imaging Associates
Attending Radiologist, The Mount Sinai Hospital
Associate Clinical Professor, Department of Radiology
Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai

Daniel Maklansky, MD, MSH ’62, one of nine accomplished physicians and researchers who received the 2019 Jacobi Medallion—one of Mount Sinai’s highest awards—has been associated with Mount Sinai since beginning his radiology residency 60 years ago.

“He is the exemplar of an outstanding clinician with world-class expertise in inflammatory bowel disease. He has been revered by our students and our faculty as an outstanding teacher,” says Dennis S. Charney, MD, Anne and Joel Ehrenkranz Dean of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and President for Academic Affairs for the Mount Sinai Health System. “And he has been dedicated to Mount Sinai to make sure that our hospital and our medical school is one of the best in the world.”

“Working with your father is special. Watching how he interacts with patients and other physicians and treating people—that is an invaluable lesson that is never taught,” says Joseph Maklansky, MD, Radiologist, New York Medical Imaging Associates, and Assistant Clinical Professor, Department of Radiology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. “He loves what he does. He does it not to be honored but to take care of people. I think my father deserves this award because he has devoted his life, his energy, and every breathing moment to the patients and staff of Mount Sinai.”

Dr. Maklansky has authored or co-authored 24 peer-reviewed publications as well as multiple chapters in the gastrointestinal radiology literature. He has also trained countless medical students, radiology residents, and gastroenterology fellows, both in weekly conferences that he co-chaired over many years, as well as in rotations through his office. Dr. Maklansky has been very involved with the Association of the Attending Staff of Mount Sinai, and served as the Scientific Course Director of its annual symposium over many years.

Dr. Maklansky has also been at the forefront of innovation. Before the introduction of colonoscopy and endoscopy, doctors had no way to know what was happening inside the patient. GI radiology allowed them to image the intestine and provide a diagnosis.

“He was on the cutting-edge of radiology,” says Jerome D. Waye, MD, Professor, Department of Medicine (Gastroenterology) at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. “He was a super clinician that made a big difference in the field of radiology. He wouldn’t just look at an X-ray and dismiss it as a piece of plastic, but he actually cared about what was behind the X-ray what happened to the patient, how the patient did, and what the outcome was.”

Annapoorna S. Kini, MD, MRCP, FACC
Director, Cardiac Catheterization Laboratory
Director, Structural Heart Disease Program
The Mount Sinai Hospital
Director, Interventional Cardiology Fellowship Program
Zena and Michael A. Wiener Professor of Medicine
Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai

“I wanted to be a physician right from when I was a little girl. And more important, not just a physician, I wanted to do something with my hands,” says Annapoorna S. Kini, MD, MRCP, FACC, one of nine accomplished physicians and researchers who received the 2019 Jacobi Medallion—one of Mount Sinai’s highest awards—and an internationally acclaimed leader in the field of percutaneous coronary intervention and heart valve therapy. “You could save lives with the procedures, and that is why I chose it.”

“If you want to achieve something, you stay focused, determined, and to achieve that it takes time,” says Dr. Kini. “My goal was that you stay at one place, which was Mount Sinai, and it gave me the opportunity.”

Dr. Kini is known for her expertise in performing complex coronary interventions and has contributed substantially in making The Mount Sinai Hospital’s Cardiac Catheterization Laboratory one of the busiest and best in the world.

“Dr. Kini has really raised the field of interventional cardiology in the nation, and globally,” says Samin K. Sharma, MD, FACC, FSCAI, Senior Vice President, Operations and Quality, Mount Sinai Heart; Director, Interventional Cardiology, Mount Sinai Health System; President, Mount Sinai Heart Network; and Anandi Lal Sharma Professor of Medicine, Cardiology, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.

Adds Dennis S. Charney, MD, Anne and Joel Ehrenkranz Dean of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and President for Academic Affairs for the Mount Sinai Health System: “She has made our cardiac catheterization laboratory one of the best in the world. So she is a great clinician and also a great teacher. She has a family of trainees that have now become experts in their own right.”

Dr. Kini is an excellent teacher dedicated to the teaching of both cardiology and interventional fellows.

“She is an innovator. She takes what she learns, in the cardio cath lab, and she brings it to the scientists for scientific research,” says Mary Ann McLaughlin, MD, MPH, MSH ’96, Medical Director, Cardiac Health Program, Associate Professor, Department of Medicine (Cardiology), Department of Population Health Science and Policy, at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. “As a mentor, Dr. Kini strives for the best. And the trainees realize that they learn so much from her. They come out as some of the best cardiologists in the country.”

“My current project right now is what is called a bifurcation stenting, where we are doing imaging and finding out why a particular way of technical stenting has to be done. That is something new that has never been published and something Mount Sinai will be the first one to show this is the way you can do it,” says Dr. Kini. “You need to be passionate and determined in whatever you are doing. I love my job, 24 hours are not enough. You probably need 36 hours to finish your work. But that is what keeps me going because I feel there is a lot to do, a lot to learn, and I’m determined still to achieve more.”

David C. Thomas, MD, MHPE
System Vice Chair for Education, Department of Medicine
Associate Dean for Continuing Medical Education
Professor, Department of Medicine
Professor, Department of Medical Education
Professor, Department of Rehabilitation and Human Performance
Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai

“I specifically chose Mount Sinai because of its incredible clinical reputation. What has always impressed me about Mount Sinai is that, from the beginning, the community has been written into its charter,” says David C. Thomas, MD, MHPE, one of nine accomplished physicians and researchers who received the 2019 Jacobi Medallion—one of Mount Sinai’s highest awards.

“I think that my approach to wanting to care for vulnerable populations really comes from the values that my family put in me. I had the opportunity to do some volunteer work in Haiti, and so saw incredible inequities in health care. I just realized it was something I wanted to dedicate myself to,” says Dr. Thomas, who for more than 20 years has devoted his career to serving the underserved in the local communities.

“I could not imagine being somewhere else than Mount Sinai. It has become a fabric for me,” says Dr. Thomas, who in 2005 co-founded the East Harlem Health Outreach Partnership (EHHOP), a student-run, attending-supervised, clinic in the Harlem community. “I love coming here to work.  I live in Harlem. It is a place that has pushed me to develop in a way that I’d never saw and could never imagine.”

“David brought the principles of comprehensive care to the most vulnerable,” says Reena Karani, MD, MHPE, Senior Associate Dean for Undergraduate Medical Education and Curricular Affairs and Director of the Institute for Medical Education at the Icahn School of Medicine.

“The East Harlem Health Outreach Partnership is really a jewel. What drives David is this incredible commitment to making sure that our trainees are equally committed in their careers, to caring for the vulnerable in an evidence-based thoughtful manner,” says Dr. Karani. “He’s an innovative thinker in medical education, and a very, very devoted mentor and advisor to so many. He understands, at the very core, that training the next generation is really our future.”

Zahi A. Fayad, PhD
Director, Translational and Molecular Imaging Institute
Lucy G. Moses Professorship in Medical Imaging and Bioengineering
Vice Chair for Research and Professor, Department of Radiology
Professor, Department of Medicine, Division of Cardiology
Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai

“In research and in discovery, not every day is perfect, and if you don’t have that love, and you don’t have that perseverance, you will be a casual scientist,” says Zahi A. Fayad, PhD, one of nine accomplished physicians and researchers who received the 2019 Jacobi Medallion—one of Mount Sinai’s highest awards. “I’m not interested in casual science. I’m interested in real science.”

Dr. Fayad’s interdisciplinary research is dedicated to the detection and prevention of cardiovascular disease with seminal contributions in the field of multimodality biomedical imaging and nanomedicine.

“He has raised the profile of Mount Sinai very significantly in the field of imaging,” says  Valentin Fuster, MD, PhD, Physician-in-Chief, The Mount Sinai Hospital; Director, Mount Sinai Heart; Director, Zena and Michael A. Wiener Cardiovascular Institute; and Richard Gorlin, MD/Heart Research Foundation Professor of Cardiology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.  “Most of it relates to the research that he has done, particularly of atherosclerosis disease, which is the number one killer today.”

Dr. Fayad has been a faculty member of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai since 1997. His work has recently expanded to understanding the effect of stress on the immune system and cardiovascular disease.

“In the past you would have to do what’s called exploratory surgery to figure out if somebody has a disease,” he says. “Now we image the person from head to toe. This revolution is embedded in every practice of medicine that that we do today.”

The author of more than 500 peer-reviewed publications, 50 book chapters, and 500 meeting presentations, Dr. Fayad is currently the principal investigator of numerous NIH grants, sub-contracts, and pharmaceutically funded clinical trials.

“I’m making connections, not only what’s going on from the cardiovascular system, but what’s the connection between the cardiovascular system, especially the immune system, and also what goes on in your brain,” he says. “We are now devising these new nanobiologics to treat the disease while we’re modulating the immune system, in a very precise manner, to try to cure diseases from cancer to transplant rejection to cardiovascular disease, and to a variety of autoimmune diseases.”

Dr. Fayad is the recipient of multiple prestigious awards and has trained over 100 postdoctoral fellows, clinical fellows, and students.

“When you’re doing science, you’re doing research, you’re not doing it by yourself. There is a whole slew of people behind you,” he says. “Big discoveries are done with very strong collaborators, it is the best way of pushing things together. That, I think, is the story of Mount Sinai. This place is magical to me.”

“Mount Sinai is lucky to have Zahi because he’s a force of nature,” says Willem J. M. Mulder, PhD, Professor, Department of Radiology and Department of Oncological Sciences and Director, TMII’s Nanomedicine Program. “He pioneered the application of magnetic resonance imaging, and he pushes all kinds of new technologies to visualize that, to quantify that, in a way that you know has not been done previously.”