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South Nassau to Join Mount Sinai Health System

Updated on Jun 30, 2022 | Community, Featured

South Nassau Communities Hospital will become the flagship hospital on Long Island for the Mount Sinai Health System under an affiliation agreement announced Wednesday, January 24, by the Boards of Trustees of the two institutions. Final state regulatory review is under way, and approvals are expected in the coming months.

A nonprofit medical center and 455-bed teaching hospital in Oceanside, South Nassau is a premier provider of health services to more than 900,000 residents on Long Island’s South Shore. It also operates the only Trauma Center on the South Shore of Nassau County, as well as Long Island’s only free-standing 911-receiving Emergency Department, in Long Beach. With 3,500 employees and 900 affiliated physicians, it is one of the few remaining independently controlled hospitals on Long Island.

If the affiliation is approved, South Nassau will become the eighth hospital campus within the Health System, which includes the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, 300 ambulatory practices and other affiliated community health centers, and more than 6,500 physicians. Mount Sinai’s current Long Island footprint includes 200 physicians and other health care professionals at 11 practices who indicate they will embrace the affiliation.

Significantly, South Nassau will become a major clinical and academic affiliate of the Icahn School of Medicine. With Mount Sinai’s academic, clinical, and research expertise, South Nassau intends to offer advanced medical care to “rival and surpass any of those available on Long Island,” according to a joint document outlining the transaction.

“The addition of South Nassau to our Long Island network represents our commitment to broadening access to innovative treatment and research in this region,” says Kenneth L. Davis, MD, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Mount Sinai Health System. “We are thrilled about what this transformative partnership means for patients and families on Long Island.”

The two institutions signed a nonbinding letter of intent last May, when they began in earnest to explore clinical programs to enhance and expand patient care and services on Long Island.

“The clinical and administrative leadership of Mount Sinai and South Nassau have been working diligently and collaboratively over the last six months to establish the foundation of this very important relationship and opportunity,” says Arthur Klein, MD, President of the Mount Sinai Health Network. “We are already convinced about the wisdom and success of this partnership.”

As part of its commitment to Long Island, Mount Sinai intends to infuse a total of $120 million in capital contributions over a five-year period for capital projects to be mutually agreed upon.

Designated a Magnet® hospital by the American Nurses Credentialing Center for outstanding nursing care, South Nassau also provides first-rate care in cardiac, oncologic, orthopedic, bariatric, pain management, mental health, and emergency services.

Even before the affiliation was announced, South Nassau was on a path of growth and expansion. Plans are already under way to renovate and nearly double the size of the Emergency Department and to build a four-story facility in Oceanside, and to expand medical services in Long Beach.

“Joining the Mount Sinai Health System represents a unique, once-in-a-generation opportunity for all Long Islanders,” says Richard J. Murphy, South Nassau’s President and Chief Executive Officer. “South Nassau and Mount Sinai have a shared vision to improve services, especially on the South Shore, which is why this affiliation makes so much sense.”

Chief of Mount Sinai Heart Leads Panel on Global Health

Updated on Jun 30, 2022 | Featured

Valentin Fuster, MD, PhD, with his co-chair, Jendayi Frazer, PhD.

Fourteen steps to strengthen the nation’s global-health programs were recommended in a recent report by the Committee on Global Health and the Future of the United States, which was co-chaired by Valentin Fuster, MD, PhD, Director of Mount Sinai Heart and Physician-in-Chief of The Mount Sinai Hospital.

The special committee of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine said that global health investment by the United States has long focused on the detection and treatment of infectious diseases such as tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS, with significant results. It found that while these efforts should be maintained, there is a pressing need to meet the challenge of cardiovascular disease (CVD) and other noncommunicable diseases. The report, which was featured in an editorial in The New England Journal of Medicine in September 2017, said that because of improved sanitation and prevention efforts, the burden of disease is shifting from infectious diseases to noncommunicable diseases.

“Chronic illnesses like heart disease and cancer continue to be a worldwide problem,” Dr. Fuster says. Cardiovascular disease was responsible for 18 million deaths in 2015, with the global cost expected to reach more than $1 trillion by 2030 in terms of treatment and loss of productivity. “The cost is huge, and we are not responding,” he says.

The committee was formed to provide “authoritative, independent, apolitical, evidence-based” recommendations, according to the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. After eight months of research and deliberation, the committee published its 360-page report, Global Health and the Future Role of the United States, making recommendations in four priority areas:

Ensuring global health security against infectious-disease pandemics
Addressing communicable threats, like HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis,and malaria
Investing in women’s and children’s health
Promoting cardiovascular health and preventing cancer.

The report’s recommendations on cardiovascular disease were the focus of a December 2017 article in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. The article noted that mortality due to CVD has been growing around the world, rising 12.5 percent between 2000 and 2015. And the increase was largely attributed to lower-middle-income countries, where 80 percent of all deaths related to cardiovascular disease occur.

The report cited “best buy” interventions for noncommunicable diseases that would cost $120 billion over 15 years but would drive a 10 percent decrease in CVD-attributable mortality and produce a $377 billion projected economic benefit due to increased productivity and lower health care costs. The interventions called for targeting risk factors with population-level measures, such as tax increases on tobacco and alcohol and point-of-service measures like counseling and drug therapy for people with a high risk of heart attacks.

The committee—co-chaired by Jendayi Frazer, PhD, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations—identified three “areas for action” to maximize the return on investments and achieve better health outcomes in its priority areas. They were: accelerating the development of medical products and digital health tools, employing more flexible financing to encourage new partners and funding, and maintaining the status of the United States as a leader in global health.

Investing in global health contributes significantly to economic prosperity and stability and creates more reliable and durable partners in the world, the report said, noting that 11 of the top 15 trading partners of the United States are former recipients of foreign aid. “The health and well-being of other countries directly and indirectly affect the health, safety, and economic security of Americans,” the report said. “The United States must preserve and extend its legacy as a global leader, partner, and innovator in global health through forward-looking policies, country and international partnerships, and most important, continued investment.”

View the report

Mount Sinai Heart Hosts 100th Live Educational Webcast

Updated on Jun 30, 2022 | Featured

Samin K. Sharma, MD, and Annapoorna S. Kini, MD, share their expertise with viewers worldwide in monthly webcasts from the Cardiac Catheterization Laboratory.

The 100th live webcast of Complex Coronary Cases—a series that has been viewed more than 580,000 times worldwide—has been celebrated by Samin K. Sharma, MD, Director of Clinical and Interventional Cardiology at The Mount Sinai Hospital, and Anandi Lal Sharma Professor of Medicine in Cardiology; and Annapoorna S. Kini, MD, Director of the Cardiac Catheterization Laboratory, and the Zena and Michael A. Wiener Professor of Medicine.

The monthly webcast, now in its ninth year, is targeted to interventional cardiologists, nurses, fellows, and other health care professionals. In real time, viewers are guided through a complex procedure by Dr. Kini and Dr. Sharma, leaders in percutaneous coronary intervention, also known as angioplasty, which opens blocked arteries and restores normal blood flow to the heart.

During the 100th program, Dr. Sharma and Dr. Kini treated a 58-year-old man with a blockage of the right coronary artery. Dr. Kini also announced the release of a novel app called Bifurcaid, to help doctors working in cardiac catheterization, which she developed with her team of fellows and the Sinai AppLab.

The app is free and works on both Apple and Android devices. Its name refers to coronary bifurcation, an interventional procedure that requires technical expertise and the mastery of myriad steps. “One of the best ways to teach is by writing books, which we have done,” Dr. Kini says. “But now we are adding new technology into the armamentarium.”

Dr. Sharma adds, “Together, this interactive app and our educational programs continue to drive innovation and further advance the treatment of coronary, valvular, and peripheral vascular disease in an effort to achieve the safest outcomes for all patients.”

Five Specialists in the Field of Psychotic Illnesses Join Mount Sinai’s Department of Psychiatry

Updated on Jun 30, 2022 | Featured, Psychiatry, Research

From left: Judith Weissman, PhD, JD, MPH; Dolores Malaspina, MD, MSPH, MS; David Kimhy, PhD; Lotje de Witte, MD, PhD; and Cheryl Corcoran, MD

The recent recruitment of five specialists to the Department of Psychiatry at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai has revitalized research, treatment, and prevention efforts in the field of psychotic illnesses and has led to the creation of the Critical Connections Program, which will help advance these endeavors.

Critical Connections will incorporate the collaborative efforts of multiple specialties within the Mount Sinai Health System—including neuroimaging, psychophysiology, genetics, neural stem cells, immunology, and epidemiology—with the goal of using the latest technologies and developments to find personalized interventions and treatments for psychosis. Clinical sites across the Health System also will contribute to a shared biorepository of samples collected from people with these illnesses.

Dolores Malaspina, MD, MSPH, MS, a leader in the field of psychosis, and Director of the new Critical Connections Program, says, “The most fundamental human quality is the ability to connect with others. Severe mental illness, particularly psychosis in schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, depression, and other conditions, disrupts this capacity and has an enormous impact on individuals, families, communities, and the general population.” The costs of social services, hospitals, courts, and prisons have an economic impact, as well. “In spite of significant scientific advances, we still know little about how to prevent and treat most psychotic illnesses. Breakthrough discoveries require innovative designs,” she adds.

Resilience, genetic susceptibility, family characteristics, environmental exposures, and other factors that account for the influences of nature and nurture will be studied by the program’s researchers. Pivotal changes occur in the brain throughout young adulthood that can be directed toward recovery and resilience. Plans call for educational training of medical students, residents, and fellows to translate new findings into evidence-based treatments.

Prior to her recruitment to Mount Sinai, Dr. Malaspina established successful clinical research programs in psychosis at the New York State Psychiatric Institute and at Bellevue Hospital Center. One of her currently funded National Institutes of Health studies that uses the Genomic Psychiatry Cohort examines the gut microbiome-brain axis, with respect to brain inflammation.

The following renowned recruits to the Icahn School of Medicine will be working with Dr. Malaspina to create a robust center of psychosis at the Mount Sinai Health System:

Cheryl Corcoran, MD, Senior Faculty, and Program Leader in Psychosis Risk at the Mount Sinai Health System, plans to launch two programs: a clinical risk and resilience research program for teens and young adults who have unusual thoughts, perceptual disturbances, and suspiciousness, and a familial-risk program for young relatives of patients with psychosis. Dr. Corcoran also plans to partner with community clinicians and experts in adolescent medicine to implement early identification and intervention programs for at-risk youth, and collaborate with basic and translational neuroscientists to study the pathophysiology underlying illness risk.

Currently, her main focus is natural language in neuropsychiatric disorders. Working with computational neuroscientists, Dr. Corcoran has identified language features that predict psychosis onset in at-risk youths. This includes subtle decreases in semantic coherence and complexity of speech (such as using shorter sentences and eliminating the words “which” and “that”). Funding from the National Institute of Mental Health has enabled Dr. Corcoran to study the neural correlates of these language abnormalities in a larger international cohort that will determine replicability and develop targets for preventive intervention.

David Kimhy, PhD, Senior Faculty, also serves as Director of the Experimental Psychopathology Laboratory, and Leader in New Interventions in Schizophrenia at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Dr. Kimhy will focus on the development of novel interventions for schizophrenia and investigate the pathophysiology and phenomenology of cognitive, affective, and social functioning in individuals with schizophrenia.

Over the past decade, Dr. Kimhy has pioneered the use of mobile phone technologies in the study of psychotic symptoms and functioning, and the use of active-play video games as part of aerobic exercise training aimed at improving neurocognition in people with schizophrenia.

Preliminary work from his laboratory indicates that aerobic exercise training is effective in improving cognitive functioning in this population, with improvements linked to exercise-related upregulation of Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor (BDNF), a biomarker of neuroplasticity. His current funding includes an award from the National Institute of Mental Health supporting a multisite, single-blind, randomized clinical trial examining the impact of aerobic exercise on neurocognition and biomarkers of neuroplasticity in individuals with schizophrenia.

As Director of Education at The Mental Illness Research, Education and Clinical Center at the James J. Peters VA Medical Center in the Bronx, Dr. Kimhy will continue his longstanding commitment to training future researchers and clinicians.

Lotje de Witte, MD, PhD, Assistant Professor of Psychiatry, combines clinical work and scientific exploration in immunology in pursuit of treatments and interventions for psychiatric diseases. Her laboratory investigates the connection between the immune system and the pathogenesis of psychiatric disorders, such as schizophrenia, mood disorders, and autism.

Recently, Dr. de Witte set up a novel stem-cell derived brain organoid model to study microglia, and established the methodology to isolate microglia from postmortem brain tissue. Microglia cells are part of the immune system and involved in both inflammation and reconstruction in the brain, processes thought to be involved in schizophrenia.

After studying the cell biological mechanisms of HIV-1 transmission, Dr. de Witte used this experience to start a distinctive research line at the Brain Center Rudolf Magnus in Utrecht, the Netherlands. She received her MD and PhD at the VU University Medical Centre, Amsterdam. Her research has been published in Nature Medicine, the Journal of Clinical Investigation, PLOS Pathogens, and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Judith Weissman, PhD, JD, MPH, Assistant Professor of Psychiatry, serves as a Research Health Specialist at the James J. Peters VA Medical Center. Her expertise is in using national data sets to examine health care patterns in the mentally ill.

At the VA Medical Center, she will collaborate with other researchers to investigate the incidence and risk factors of suicide, along with the access and utilization of mental health care services among vulnerable populations, particularly military veterans with mental illness. Dr. Weissman will also research possible interventions. Suicide by veterans remains a critical problem, and few empirically based treatment strategies for suicide prevention among post-deployed military personnel currently exist.

Serving as a Senior Service Fellow at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention earlier in her career helped hone Dr. Weissman’s skill in analyzing large data sets. She has also investigated topics such as polypharmacy in the nation’s elderly and disparities in antidepressant prescribing practices.

Blocking a Hormone Builds Bone and Burns Fat At Menopause, a Promising Study Finds

Updated on Jun 30, 2022 | Featured, Research

Mone Zaidi, MD, PhD

A single hormone whose levels rise at menopause could be responsible for the weight gain and bone loss that many women experience in middle age, and blocking that hormone could help reverse those effects, according to a study in mice that was led by Mone Zaidi, MD, PhD, Professor of Medicine (Endocrinology, Diabetes and Bone Disease), at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. The strong clinical potential of these results has been noted in The New England Journal of Medicine, and in Nature Medicine, which in December 2017 named the study one of the year’s eight “notable advances.”

The work began about 10 years ago when Dr. Zaidi challenged endocrinology’s long-held notion that the pituitary follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH) controlled only reproductive targets: the production of estrogen in women and sperm in men.

Using animal models, Dr. Zaidi showed that FSH had direct effects in conserving bone. That discovery piqued Dr. Zaidi’s curiosity: Could FSH also play a role in the sharp increase in visceral fat that occurs in women during late perimenopause?

To answer the question, his group conducted a study that included injecting a polyclonal antibody that blocked FSH signaling into several groups of mice: females that had their ovaries removed and were fed a normal diet; male and female mice that were fed a high-fat diet; and female mice on a normal diet.

“What we found was that by targeting FSH and blocking its action, we could not only prevent bone loss but also reduce body fat and improve energy homeostasis,” he observes. “We thought to ourselves, ‘This is really a weird finding.’”

Dr. Zaidi, who is founding director of the Mount Sinai Bone Program, then enlisted the support of Clifford J. Rosen, MD, a bone and fat expert who is Director of the Center for Clinical & Translational Research at the Maine Medical Center Research Institute. For the next two and a half years, the scientists replicated each other’s work, culminating in the publication of a comprehensive study in the June 2017 issue of the journal Nature. Their findings confirmed that blocking access of FSH to its receptor using an epitope-specific polyclonal antibody resulted in increased bone mass and a marked reduction in visceral fat in ovariectomized mice. As for the possible mechanism behind these changes, Dr. Zaidi found that the antibody reduced white adipose tissue—where fat is stored—and converted it to brown (or beige) adipose tissue, the type of fat that is burned to provide energy.

Images from the study in Nature show CT scans of the abdomens of mice that were fed a high-fat diet. The amount of visceral fat (in red) was significantly lower, right, when a mouse was injected with an antibody to the follicle-stimulating hormone, compared with a mouse injected with the control substance IgG.

In humans, a version of the antibody used in his study might be able to simultaneously treat bone loss and fat accumulation in women, offering a new approach to associated medical conditions, such as osteoporosis, cardiovascular disease, cancer, and diabetes. And because the antibody was found to be effective in both male and female mice, the benefits could extend to both genders in humans, particularly in controlling obesity.

Dr. Zaidi points out that two classes of obesity drugs are currently on the market: those that suppress appetite and those that reduce the absorption of fat from the gut. Both classes, however, come with significant side effects.

“The FSH-blocking antibody works on neither of these sites, but instead acts directly on fat cells by converting white to brown fat tissue,” Dr. Zaidi says. “This is truly a new game.”

In collaboration with Mount Sinai Innovation Partners, Dr. Zaidi is exploring opportunities to realize the vast potential of this research through commercial partnerships.

A Celebration of Achievement and Alumni Bonds at the VF Society Anniversary Dinner

Updated on Jun 30, 2022 | Community, Featured

Former trainees gathered around Valentin Fuster, MD, PhD, front row, center, at the 16th Year Anniversary Dinner of the VF Society.

More than 140 members of the VF Society, a nonprofit alumni association for the training graduates of Mount Sinai’s Zena and Michael A. Wiener Cardiovascular Institute, recently gathered for its 16th Year Anniversary Dinner.

The Society is named for Valentin Fuster, MD, PhD, the Institute’s Director, who is also Physician-in-Chief of The Mount Sinai Hospital, and the Director of Mount Sinai Heart and the Marie-Josée and Henry R. Kravis Center for Cardiovascular Health.

The VF Society was created by former trainees to honor Dr. Fuster’s strong commitment to them, and to strengthen their alumni bonds with The Mount Sinai Hospital.

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