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Mount Sinai Receives More than $1.2 Million for Front-line Workers From Online Charity Poker Event

Updated on Jun 30, 2022 | COVID-19, Featured

A unique online fund-raising effort led by David Zaslav, President and Chief Executive Officer of Discovery Inc. and a Mount Sinai board member, has raised more than $1.2 million to support front-line staff at the Mount Sinai Health System.

The “All-In For Mount Sinai” celebrity poker tournament, held Saturday, April 25, included celebrities, leaders of business and finance, and Mount Sinai board members. All of the funds raised were donated to the Mount Sinai COVID-19 Response Fund, which will pay for personal protective equipment, meals, and other support for health care providers and other front-line workers at the Mount Sinai Health System.

The 65 participants included many figures from entertainment and sports: Ben Affleck, Bryan Cranston, Joy Behar, Bobby Flay, Chip Gaines, Cheryl Hines, Lorraine Bracco, Jason Alexander, Brad Garrett, Jordan Spieth, Adam Savage, Boris Becker, Bob Balaban, Shannon Elizabeth, Dr. Sandra Lee, Buddy Valastro, Mike Finnegan, Jesse James, Michael Symon, Dave Salmoni, Sig Hansen, Amanda Freitag, Tory Belleci, Will Packer, Suzanne Todd, Willie Garson, and Chris Harrison. Tiger Woods also supported the effort by announcing the tournament earlier in the week across his social channels, reaching millions.

In addition, David Solomon, Chairman and CEO of Goldman Sachs; Joe Kernen, host of CNBC’s Squawk Box; and Kevin Plank, founder of Under Armour, participated, along with Mount Sinai board members Richard Friedman, Frank Bisignano, and Robert Savage.

The donations came from 795 donors and were made via Pledgeling, an online company that helps businesses partner with nonprofits.

The event was hosted by Americas Cardroom, an online poker site.

Learn more about the All-In for Mount Sinai Virtual Poker Tournament

Mount Sinai Student Named a 2020 Paul & Daisy Soros New Americans Fellow

Updated on Jun 30, 2022 | Featured, School

Sherman Leung with his parents, Chris and Joanne, after getting his white coat and a stethoscope as a first-year medical student at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.

Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai student Sherman Leung is among 30 recipients—out of 2,211 applicants—to be named a 2020 Paul & Daisy Soros New Americans Fellow. The program recognizes outstanding immigrants and children of immigrants pursuing graduate studies in the United States who have the potential to make significant contributions to the nation through their work. Each Fellow will receive up to $90,000 in funding over two years. Sherman, whose family came to the United States from Hong Kong, is a rising second-year medical student. The award will support his medical education.

The selection team specifically emphasized creativity, originality, initiative, and sustained accomplishment—all of which are found in abundance in Sherman’s early career.

Sherman was born in Maryland after his parents emigrated from Hong Kong during the handover of Hong Kong. His parents re-started their college educations and careers once in the United States; his father is a biochemist-turned-software engineer, and his mother, a literature major-turned-program analyst. “They taught me the importance of interdisciplinary thinking from an early age,” says Sherman. In high school, he conducted research that applied music theory to organic chemistry, and computational approaches to vaccine design.

Sherman’s diverse interests led him to Stanford University where he completed premedical requirements, initially planning to be a doctor. As he learned more about artificial intelligence, he shifted his focus to technology, conducting machine learning and social gamification research. While at Stanford, he started SHIFT, an interdisciplinary student group promoting and cultivating health care innovation initiatives.

After graduating with a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, and a master’s degree Management Science and Engineering, Sherman moved to Boston, where he was an early product manager at PatientPing, a startup connecting providers across organizations and facilities to coordinate care and improve patient outcomes. For his work launching a national care coordination platform at PatientPing, Sherman was named to MedTech Boston’s “40 under 40 Healthcare Innovators” list in 2018.

“During my time working with health care startups and volunteering with immigrant and indigent patient populations, I was so inspired by many intimate patient-provider encounters to more directly serve patients as a physician,” he says. “I looked carefully for institutions that were eager to integrate new and underrepresented perspectives, and support extracurricular interests in addition to clinical medicine.” He found this at the Icahn School of Medicine, saying, “Dean Muller’s support of my diverse interests across entrepreneurship, health care technology, and clinical medicine, and the opportunity to work with Mount Sinai’s Diversity Innovation Hub, have been especially affirming in my first year as a medical student.” David Muller, MD, is Dean for Medical Education, and Professor and Marietta and Charles C. Morchand Chair in Medical Education.

Today, while pursuing his medical degree, Sherman continues to invest in and launch health care companies at AlleyCorp, a venture studio and early-stage investment fund based in New York City. “I care deeply about leveraging technology to support underserved patient populations and increasing the efficiency and efficacy of health care delivery,” he says.

He additionally supports student COVID-19 efforts at the Icahn School of Medicine, and is a New York City leader for Off Their Plate, a national initiative started by a 2019 Paul & Daisy Soros Fellow that simultaneously supports restaurant and health care workers during this time of public health and economic upheaval. The organization raises funds that go directly to pay the wages of restaurant workers, who in turn prepare nutritious meals for front-line health care workers.

When asked for a famous quote that has inspired him, he chose this African proverb: “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” The word “together” is one that has long shaped him. “As the proud son of immigrants from Hong Kong, I am the product of parents who chose to prioritize democratic freedom over their own professional careers,” he says. “I believe that I am where I am today because of their sacrifice in choosing the more difficult path. To me, being the child of immigrants means that you never forget where you come from—they are the roots I will always acknowledge as I hope to continue my family’s heritage in both service and entrepreneurship.”

Students, Postdoctoral Fellows, and Faculty Team Up to Advance Immunology Research on COVID-19

Updated on Jun 30, 2022 | COVID-19, Featured, Research, School

Members of the Sinai Immunology Review Project. From left to right: Matthew Spindler; Louise Malle; Berengere Salome, PharmD, PhD ; Miriam Merad, MD, PhD ; Luisanna Paulino; Verena van der Heide, PhD; and Nicolas Vabret, PhD. Via Zoom, left to right, top row to bottom: Alvaro Moreira, MD; Robert Samstein, MD, PhD; Rachel Levantovsky; Matthew Park, Conor Gruber; and Emma Risson.

The unprecedented generation of non-peer-reviewed scientific information about COVID-19 in just a few months helped galvanize more than 50 members of the Precision Immunology Institute at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai into forming a group to parse through the data.

The effort, called the Sinai Immunology Review Project, is composed of faculty, postdoctoral fellows, and graduate students. By sharing their knowledge and expertise, project members evaluate the quality of the research being posted to the bioRxiv and medRxiv preprint servers and help advance the most significant findings that are related to their field. Peer review is quality control provided by a panel of experts who evaluate whether a study has used proper research methods and is scientifically valid.

“Reviewing the preprinted studies benefits the authors and the scientific community, provides the public with access to what is being discussed, and helps reinforce scientific credibility,” says one of the project leaders, Nicolas Vabret, PhD, Assistant Professor of Medicine (Hematology and Medical Oncology) and a member of the Precision Immunology Institute at the Icahn School of Medicine. “To help pick the best treatments for COVID-19 you need to have a strong understanding of the pathology of the disease and we are able to help with this.” Many of the researchers who are working from home during this pandemic welcome the collaborative opportunity to contribute to the field.

Since mid-March, the project’s participants have ranked more than 2,000 studies according to their immunological relevance and written 130 reviews that are then posted alongside the corresponding study on the preprint servers. To ensure that the best science is elevated, each summary is written by a fellow or student specializing in a specific area of the immune system and then reviewed by a faculty member. A website built by Nicolas Fernandez, PhD, a computational scientist at Mount Sinai’s Human Immune Monitoring Center, hosts all of the reviews.

Recognition of this work recently led the editors of Nature Reviews Immunology to reach out to Miriam Merad, MD, PhD, Mount Sinai Professor of Immunology and Director of the Precision Immunology Institute, to form a unique collaboration. Mount Sinai is now publishing three short commentaries in the publication each week on the most promising immunological findings on COVID-19. Within a few days of launching the collaboration with Nature Reviews Immunology, Mount Sinai’s work was viewed more than 10,000 times.

Project co-leader Robert Samstein, MD, PhD, Assistant Professor of Radiation Oncology, and a member of the Precision Immunology Institute, says, “This has been a massive effort. It’s been a great opportunity for Mount Sinai’s trainees to integrate all of their knowledge and provide a summary for the scientific community,” so quickly and efficiently. “The huge flurry of output on COVID-19 by the scientific community is unprecedented and this effort is responding to that.”

While speed and the open sharing of information are vital to enhancing further understanding of the COVID-19 health emergency, the peer-review process is an essential part of scientific advancement and the preprint servers that are now publishing all of this new information were never meant as a replacement. In the absence of the peer-review process, members of the Immunology Project are stepping in to provide their expertise in the best way they can, says Dr. Samstein.

“By doing this we can really help make it easier for policy makers, physicians, and scientists to see what the best information is as it evolves and have a direct impact on treatments,” adds Dr. Vabret.

As time goes on, the medical and scientific community is learning more about the disease and calling into question some of its earliest hypotheses about possible treatments. This makes the need to highlight quality science to inform decision-making a continued priority, according to Dr. Vabret.

Mount Sinai Medical Students Graduate Early, Some To Join a Special Medical Corps

Updated on Jun 30, 2022 | COVID-19, Featured, School

Katleen Lozada, MD, one of the first Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai students to sign up for early graduation.

Seventy-seven Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai students earned their medical degrees early on Wednesday, April 15, at a time when Mount Sinai Health System hospitals are experiencing extraordinary and unprecedented demands brought on by the COVID-19 public health crisis. Among them are 19 graduates who matched at Mount Sinai for residency and volunteered to join the Mount Sinai Medical Corps, helping to relieve a strained medical system while answering the call by New York Governor Andrew M. Cuomo for “all hands on deck” to assist in any way.

On that day, a number of the early graduates participated in an informal ceremony—from the safety of their homes and conducted on Zoom—reciting the modern Hippocratic Oath and marking this milestone with faculty, staff, and friends and family, all in virtual attendance. Led by Staci Leisman, MD, FASN, Associate Professor of Medicine (Nephrology), and Medical Education, each graduate made a commitment to “respect the hard-won scientific gains of those physicians in whose steps I walk,” to “respect the privacy of my patients,” to “tread with care in matters of life and death,” and to “prevent disease whenever I can, for prevention is preferable to a cure.”

Staci Leisman, MD, FASN, Associate Professor of Medicine (Nephrology), and Medical Education, led students and faculty in reciting the modern Hippocratic Oath during a virtual ceremony.

The opportunity to graduate from the Icahn School of Medicine a month early—as well as the decision to begin clinical work in the Health System through the Mount Sinai Medical Corps—was strictly voluntary. The Medical Corps is a newly formed training program that gives these newest MDs an opportunity to provide vitally needed support services to an overburdened staff—entering orders, for example, scribing, relaying updates to patient families, and facilitating discharge planning. Also joining Mount Sinai graduates in these efforts are 12 graduates from other medical schools who have matched at Mount Sinai for residency.

“We are extremely proud of the dedication and altruism of our students and their passion for helping our patients and communities at this historic time,” said David Muller, MD, Dean for Medical Education, and Professor and Marietta and Charles C. Morchand Chair in Medical Education at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.

Katleen Lozada was one of the first Icahn School of Medicine students to sign up for early graduation. “This is definitely not how I envisioned my graduation, but I just really want to help alleviate the intense pressure on clinical staff working on the front lines. What lies ahead is somewhat unknown, but most of all I am looking forward to helping in whatever capacity is needed,” said Dr. Lozada, who matched in the Emergency Medicine residency. The program has training sites at The Mount Sinai Hospital and Mount Sinai Beth Israel—and at Elmhurst Hospital, which is part of a New York City integrated system of health care facilities that has been particularly hard-hit with COVID-19 cases.

“I would much rather be working and helping during this crisis than sitting at home and watching other able-bodied medical professionals take the brunt of the disaster,” added Dr. Lozada, whose mother is a pediatrician.

Olamide Omidele, MD

Also among the early graduates was Olamide Omidele—now Olamide Omidele, MD—a native of Nigeria who was matched to Mount Sinai as a urology resident. “The health care system is currently strained, and I am hoping that I can provide relief in whatever way is needed,” said Dr. Omidele. “I draw my strength, optimism, and comfort about joining the workforce from my parents, who are the main reason I chose to go into medicine.”

For Dr. Lozada, who is a first-generation New Yorker raised in the Bronx, the opportunity to assist the city she loves was also a motivating factor. “What’s even more exciting is that I’ll have the honor of serving the New York City community I grew up with and am awed by every day,” she said. “I can’t wait to get started!”

Students, faculty, staff, family, and friends participated in the virtual ceremony.

Mount Sinai’s Antibody Test for COVID-19 Receives Emergency Use Authorization from FDA

Updated on Jun 30, 2022 | COVID-19, Featured, Research

A renowned team of virologists, pathologists, and clinicians at the Mount Sinai Health System developed, validated, and launched a blood test for COVID-19 antibodies that received the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) emergency use authorization late Wednesday.

The blood test determines whether individuals have antibodies to the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19. It is used for the qualitative detection of human IgG antibodies in serum and plasma that is collected from individuals suspected of having been infected with SARS-CoV-2.

Early development of the assay, led by Florian Krammer, PhD, Professor of Microbiology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, enabled Mount Sinai to become the first health system in the nation to undertake a convalescent plasma program that transfers the antibody-rich plasma from recovered COVID-19 patients into those who are critically ill.

To date, Mount Sinai has identified more than 1,900 donors who are eligible to provide their antibodies. A total of 141 patients have received the protocol, and the results are being evaluated clinically.

Under the leadership of Peter Palese, PhD, Horace W. Goldsmith Professor and Chair of the Department of Microbiology, Mount Sinai has built one of the world’s leading academic institutions for the study of viruses and emerging pathogens. “The COVID-19 antibody test is not only helpful in identifying individuals who could be donors for the convalescent plasma program but also identifies persons who can safely go back to work now that they are immune to the virus,” Dr. Palese says. This important step would allow the nation to return to economic productivity.

“We are grateful to the FDA for granting this expanded authorization so that we can deploy this vital test to the community at large,” says Carlos Cordon-Cardo, MD, PhD, Irene Heinz Given and John LaPorte Given Professor and Chair of Pathology, Molecular and Cell-Based Medicine. Dr. Cordon-Cardo oversaw the validation of the test that is produced by the Mount Sinai Laboratory, Center for Clinical Laboratories. The Mount Sinai Hospital’s Clinical Laboratories are certified by the Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments and accredited by the College of American Pathologists.

According to Dr. Krammer, the antibody test can, in some cases, pick up the body’s response to infection as early as three days post-symptom onset and is highly specific and sensitive. “We have shared the toolkit needed to set up the test with more than 200 research laboratories worldwide to help mitigate this global crisis,” Dr. Krammer says.

David L. Reich, MD, President of The Mount Sinai Hospital, and Judith A. Aberg, MD, Chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases and Immunology in the Department of Medicine, have led Mount Sinai’s convalescent plasma program. “The exchange of ideas between clinicians and scientists and our intense drive to innovate is the catalyst that led to this achievement,” says Dr. Reich. “Mount Sinai will continue to advance the science and medicine in the fight against COVID-19.”

Preliminary Case Series Leads to New Questions About the Disease Progression of COVID-19 in Patients with Blood Clots in the Lung

Updated on Jun 30, 2022 | COVID-19, Featured, Research

Hooman D. Poor, MD, Assistant Professor of Medicine (Pulmonology, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine, and Cardiology)

A small, preliminary case series led by physicians at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai found that five severely ill patients with the SARS-CoV-2 virus responded to the blood-clot-busting drug tPA when it was introduced as a life-saving measure. This response, and the large number of critically ill COVID-19 patients who have blood clots in their lungs, have raised new questions concerning the course of the disease and may present new possibilities for treating it.

“This case series pushes us to consider avenues of clinical investigation that are different from what they are now,” says the paper’s first author, Hooman D. Poor, MD, Assistant Professor of Medicine (Pulmonology, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine, and Cardiology). “Perhaps we should be looking at the disease from the standpoint of clots that form in the blood vessels and travel to the lungs.”

Dr. Poor says that more testing will be needed to determine whether the clots are the “inciting events in a subset of patients,” and not a complication that develops after these patients develop acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). “ARDS looks the same, but it’s not,” he says. It requires “dramatically different treatments.”

According to the paper, the critically ill COVID-19 patients had relatively well-preserved lung mechanics, and did not develop stiffness of the lungs, despite severe gas exchange abnormalities. This feature is more consistent with pulmonary vascular disease and not with classic ARDS. The COVID-19 patients also demonstrated markedly abnormal coagulation with elevated D-dimers—small protein fragments present in the blood after a blood clot—and higher rates of venous thromboembolism, a condition where blood clots that form in the deep veins of the legs or groin travel and become lodged in the lungs.

Click here to read the paper titled “COVID-19 Critical Illness Pathophysiology Driven by Diffuse Pulmonary Thrombi and Pulmonary Endothelial Dysfunction Responsive to Thrombolysis.”

Mount Sinai’s paper cited autopsy studies from the SARS outbreak in the early 2000s, which revealed that patients had “pulmonary thrombi, pulmonary infarcts, and microthrombi in other organs.” SARS-CoV-1, the virus that caused SARS, and SARS-CoV-2, which causes COVID-19, belong to the same family of coronaviruses.

With mounting evidence that a consistent pattern of COVID-19 patients are presenting with blood clots, front-line clinicians at the Mount Sinai Health System and throughout the United States are reassessing and modifying existing guidelines that incorporate anticoagulation therapies.

Mount Sinai has provided treatment guidelines for its eight hospitals that address the significant role microthrombi—tiny clots composed of platelets—may play in patients with severe cases of COVID-19. The new guidelines help to inform clinical decision-making on administering anti-coagulation therapy for critically ill patients throughout the Health System. They call for patients who require hospitalization to be assessed for blood clots in their lungs by measuring their oxygen levels, testing for markers of clotting in their blood, and assessing their difficulty breathing or shortness of breath. Patients in intensive care units may also be eligible for a clinical trial at Mount Sinai that will examine the use of thrombolysis in respiratory failure due to COVID-19.

The recommendation was made by a panel of expert clinicians within Mount Sinai, and was based on published and rapidly emerging data, international and local experience, and autopsy reports.

Recently, the International Society on Thrombosis and Haemostatis recommended that all hospitalized COVID-19 patients, even those not in intensive care units, should receive prophylactic-dose low molecular weight heparin—a blood thinner—unless they have contraindications, such as active bleeding.

“If patients with COVID-19 show a small problem with their lungs, perhaps we should start them on blood thinners to prevent the clots from reaching the point where we have to administer tPA,” says Dr. Poor. “However, this treatment paradigm with early anticoagulation will need to be evaluated with well-designed clinical trials.”

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