Some stress is part of everyone’s life. But there are times when the daily demands of the job or school, the complications of home life, the pressure of living in the New York metropolitan area, and the state of the world, especially with the ongoing pandemic, can combine to leave you feeling physically and emotionally overwhelmed. In these moments, you may notice your heart rate rising or your breathing becoming heavier, or find you are lacking energy or a sense of enthusiasm or confidence.
You know you need to do something. But what?
Jacqueline Hargrove, PhD
In this Q&A, Jacqueline Hargrove, PhD, a licensed clinical psychologist and Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, says you can start by separating “stressors,” those things like work, planning a wedding, or having a child, from stress, which is your body’s response to these stressors. Once you do that, she offers five tips on how to improve your mindset and increase your flexibility so you can begin to improve how you manage stress and get unstuck from cycles of chronic stress even while the stressors of life persist.
Get physical
The best way to deal with the stress is to do things that are physical. That helps breakdown those hormones that increase our heart rate and our breathing and get us ready for action. This can be a whole host of different things. Anything that literally just gets your heart rate going, or breathing deeply is fair game. Physical activity helps your body reach a calmer state. A lot of folks may not like going to the gym or going for a run. So you can do a Zumba class at home, or yoga. Or just focus on deep breathing or breathing exercises.
Alternatively, you can connect with other people and soak up some physical affection. If you’ve ever come home from work and been greeted warmly by your partner, or even a pet, you know how that can be comforting and stress reducing. Even laughing and crying can be helpful, as many may know from having a good cry or experiencing a deep belly laugh. Afterwards, you feel better, because it’s a physical process and helps us actually release some of that stress and tension that can stay stuck in our bodies.
Figure out what you can control and what you can’t
A lot of the stressors are out of our control. So it’s important to understand if something that is stressing you out is something you have some control over, and can problem solve, or not. If there is something, even a small thing, that you can do and is in your control that will help reduce or eliminate the stressor then absolutely do it. However, if it’s something that’s more chronic or something that you don’t necessarily have control over, try to see what meaning you can gain from the experience. Many of life’s most important transitions, such as that first job or first child, come with stress. But often it is the positive meaning we tend to associate with these events that can help us mitigate the stress associated with them. However, let’s say you may be facing a situation at work that’s challenging. Or in a relationship where you feel your needs aren’t being met. Sometimes just shifting our expectations can actually reduce stress because then we aren’t fighting with what we are expecting of other people or things we can’t control. Overall, it’s important to remember that stress, not chronic stress, is a part of life and learning to roll with and make meaning of these challenges is part of the journey.
Take stock of your environment and surroundings. It’s not necessarily all on you
Try to contextualize your stress. What I mean by that is, sometimes we can think we have a personal failing because we’re so stressed out. But if we just take a minute to step back, we realize there’s so much going on in our lives. Being in a global pandemic right now is stressful, being a parent right now is an added level of stress. Navigating your life as a person of color or an immigrant or a member of the LGBTQ community has its own stress due to discrimination or systemic barriers that are unjustly imposed on these communities. There are so many ways in which our identities can contribute to the stress that we experience. In this way, it can help to acknowledge how our identities and the environment we are in play a role in the day-to-day stress we experience. This can help us not be so self critical and can also help us identify ways to manage that stress and find empowering ways to deal with the stressors.
Redefine productivity
In the United States, there is a common narrative that centers around always needing to be productive, and that is a culture that is ripe for stress. Productivity can simply mean intentionally working toward a meaningful goal. So let’s say your goal is mental health and well-being, then rest can be a really productive thing that you’re doing in line with that goal. Making time for yourself can therefore be productive. Also, capitalize on idle time. This can include choosing to not do anything during those five minutes in between meetings. Or if you take public transit during your commute, maybe intentionally getting off one stop earlier and extending your walk home. Finding time when you don’t need to be engaging with your day-to-day stressors can be really important.
Learn to say no
Learn to say no to things and learn to set boundaries. A lot of our stress can come from sometimes feeling like we have to say yes, or put more and more on our plate, when it actually isn’t in our own best interest. So if you’re saying yes to things, and you have the ability to say no, you can ask yourself: Is this benefitting me? Does engaging in this activity help me feel energized and excited? Or does it end up making me feel depleted and resentful? Take time to listen to your body, set some boundaries, and find some time to relax and restore.
Mount Sinai’s first recipient of the National Institute of Mental Health’s T32 postdoctoral research fellowship, Training the New Generation of Clinical Neuroscientists: Vahe Khachadourian, MD, PhD.
A large body of research suggests that environmental exposures during pregnancy may be associated with autism in offspring. But those studies barely scratch the surface of the complex task of understanding the cause of autism spectrum disorders. At the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, postdoctoral fellow Vahe Khachadourian, MD, PhD, and his mentor Magdalena Janecka, PhD, are working to solve that intricate puzzle.
Dr. Janecka is an assistant professor of psychiatry and heads the Functional Epidemiology lab at the Seaver Autism Center at the school of medicine. Dr. Khachadourian was Mount Sinai’s first recipient of the National Institute of Mental Health’s T32 postdoctoral research fellowship, Training the New Generation of Clinical Neuroscientists.
With support from this prestigious fellowship and mentorship from Dr. Janecka and others at Mount Sinai, Dr. Khachadourian is helping to paint a more complete picture of the environmental exposures that affect pregnant people and their developing children.
Pregnancy Exposures and Autism: What Is the Connection? Dr. Khachadourian trained as a physician before receiving a PhD in epidemiology. His current research focuses on the intersection of psychiatric and physical disorders — a topic that fits squarely within Dr. Janecka’s interests. “My lab is focused on early life and parental risk factors for neurodevelopmental disorders,” she said. That focus takes two tracks: “We want to learn how different exposures in pregnancy are associated with future autism risk in the child, and also better understand how different exposures in pregnancy relate to each other,” she added.
Dr. Khachadourian’s first project in the Functional Epidemiology lab focused on the latter of those goals, exploring patterns of co-occurring mental and physical health problems in a population sample of pregnant women in Israel. He found a significantly higher burden of physical problems among pregnant women with a mental health diagnosis than in those without—higher even than the rate of comorbid physical conditions, suggesting distinct links between physical and mental health during pregnancy. The physical symptoms ranged across disease states, including neurological, gastrointestinal, and musculoskeletal diseases. This work, currently pending publication, was presented at the Society of Biological Psychiatry conference last year.
The high co-occurrence of mental and physical symptoms has implications for both pregnancy outcomes and child health outcomes such as autism, Dr. Khachadourian said. In other studies, he has started to dig into the implications for autism risk. One analysis explored a variety of factors that pregnant women may be exposed to, such as preterm birth, hypoxia, infections, and trauma during pregnancy, as well as medical comorbidities, including depression, anxiety, obesity, sleeping problems, and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. He and his colleagues looked for patterns among comorbidities in pregnant women and possible associations with autism in their babies. The study also incorporated data from siblings who did not have autism, to tease out which environmental exposures are most likely to contribute to the development of autism.
“If we know women have had [certain] exposures, we may be able to prevent some comorbidities, and we may be more likely to screen for and diagnose autism in their offspring earlier,” he says. “Of course, identifying these unique patterns may also help us to better understand the etiology of autism spectrum disorders.”
In other ongoing work using population samples, Dr. Khachadourian is analyzing health registry data from Denmark and Israel to examine the links between maternal medication use and psychiatric and physical diagnoses and autism in their offspring. “When it comes to autism, there are studies that have examined maternal exposures, but most have focused on one or a few diagnoses rather than systematically evaluating the wide range of diagnoses a mother can have during pregnancy. That is one unique aspect of our work,” he said. “Another aspect is that we use a relatively large sample and combine family design to try to tease out some of the confounding factors and begin to tease out some of the correlation from causation.”
These projects are exploratory in nature. While they are not designed to identify causal relationships between maternal exposures and autism, Dr. Khachadourian and Dr. Janecka hope they will point toward possible clues that warrant further study.
Fellowship Research in Functional Epidemiology The T32 postdoctoral fellowship is designed to train clinician-scientists to formulate original research questions surrounding the etiology, pathogenesis, treatment, and prevention of neurological disorders, with the goal of bridging the gap between neurobiology research and clinical disease. The structured program includes a number of core training courses and workshops, as well as a dedicated mentoring team. Ultimately, the fellowship aims to translate research into better patient care “Whenever we think about conducting a study, we always think about the implications for both clinical practice and for future research,” Dr. Khachadourian said.
The fellowship has been a rich opportunity for Dr. Khachadourian and for Mount Sinai, Dr. Janecka said, providing dedicated funding and establishing Dr. Khachadourian as an NIH-funded early-career scientist. The research has been so successful, she added, that the fellowship has been extended a third year.
That research partnership is helping to chip away at the complex factors that influence autism risk. “A lot of studies show the association of this or that with future autism spectrum disorder. But we still don’t know why,” Dr. Janecka said. “We are trying to combine several different approaches, and several different data sets, to better understand the role of the environment in autism.”
Sidney Hankerson, MD, MBA, holds two new leadership roles at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai: Vice Chair for Community Engagement for the Department of Psychiatry, as well as Director of Mental Health Equity Research for the Institute for Health Equity Research (IHER) in the Department of Population Health Science and Policy.
Mount Sinai’s Department of Psychiatry is pleased to welcome Sidney Hankerson, MD, MBA, to our faculty. Dr. Hankerson holds two leadership roles at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai: Vice Chair for Community Engagement for the Department of Psychiatry, as well as Director of Mental Health Equity Research for the Institute for Health Equity Research (IHER) in the Department of Population Health Science and Policy.
Dr. Hankerson has received several prestigious awards, including the American Psychiatric Association’s Nancy C.A. Roeske, MD, Certificate of Recognition for Excellence in Medical Student Education, and he was chosen as a 2021 Emerging Leader in Health and Medicine by the National Academy of Medicine. Last year, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio appointed him Chair of the Community Services Board of the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. In that role, he identified two priorities. The first is addressing behavioral health care needs in children and adolescents, given the rise in suicide attempts—particularly in Black and Latinx youth. The second is addressing the workforce shortage to meet the increased demand for mental health care. “Figuring out how we address the shortage and demand for these vulnerable populations is crucial,” he said. “Ideally, we can bring in early-stage clinicians and researchers to be on the ground and develop new models of care and engagement and delivery models.”
At Mount Sinai, Dr. Hankerson’s primary focus is in reducing racial and ethnic disparities in mental health treatment, particularly depression. “My overall charge is to really integrate principles of community-based participatory research—partnering with community organizations, and working in lockstep with community members to develop, implement, and test culturally relevant mental health interventions,” he said. To that end, he has launched an initiative in Harlem that trains church members as community health workers to screen for depression and provide brief evidence-based counseling. He plans to build on this to create a model for church-affiliated mental health clinics that can be replicated through New York City, as well as nationwide.
“Mount Sinai’s clinical infrastructure and IHER’s expertise in engaging communities of color will be invaluable in working toward that objective,” he said. “I think it will be a very nice fit, both clinically, because Mount Sinai serves many patients who call Harlem home, and because our churches are among the most trusted institutions in the African American community and have long been natural havens for mental health support.”
Dr. Hankerson believes his most important job is to listen and learn from the faculty. “It’s a priority for me to learn and identify the wonderful things Mount Sinai is already doing in the community, and to try to expand it to give it a bigger platform as well as to identify opportunities that are yet untapped,” he said. “One of the things that’s so exciting and novel about Mount Sinai is the DEI Committee within Psychiatry. To have such a robust committee dedicated to DEI is really phenomenal, so I am really excited to work with them.”
The committee co-directors, from left to right: Dolores Malaspina, MD, MS, MSPH, Vice Chair of DEI for Psychiatry, and Shilpa Taufique, PhD, Director of the Psychology Division.
Separate apologies by the American Psychiatric Association and the American Psychological Association in 2021 hopefully marked a turning point for mental health care. For the first time, each association officially acknowledged how the disciplines have enabled and even promoted systemic racism and inequity over the years, with detrimental effects on patients, families, and providers. (The psychology association included a chronology of historical harms inflicted.) The associations pledged to take action.
The Department of Psychiatry has begun initial steps to address similar shortcomings and opportunities, working within Mount Sinai Health System but also looking to influence decisions made beyond our walls. The Psychiatry Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Steering Committee is a psychiatry-specific committee that meets at least every other week, spans the Health System, and includes 40-plus members. Crucially, those members come from a range of personal perspectives and professional backgrounds, ranging from trainees to department chairs.
The group has also formed subcommittees to focus on specific tasks and projects. Areas of concern include drawing greater diversity into our clinical teams and leadership roles and supporting existing faculty identifying as Black, Indigenous, and/or a person of color (BIPOC). The committee also wants to expand access to marginalized populations and revise the way clinicians approach their care. We are acknowledging the problem, voicing our support, and looking to act as soon as possible.
Maintaining and Developing Diversity Among Mental Health Providers The American Psychological Association found that in 2015, 86 percent of U.S. psychologists were white, while just 14 percent came from other racial and ethnic groups—a less diverse representation than the population as a whole.
We need to change who can access our disciplines. For historical reasons, candidates from certain populations often cannot afford to take on residencies and other training programs. We are working to increase salaries and funding to ensure we can recruit a diverse group of trainees to enter the field.
We also want to retain our existing BIPOC faculty by providing the mentoring they seek and ensuring they have support to grow and thrive. Those efforts will likely include pathways to professional advancement and promotion that may not have existed before.
A specific, pending step focuses on how we elicit feedback and handle concerns within our department. While existing reporting mechanisms have a role at our institution, we acknowledge that people may not want to participate because of the punitive nature often involved when expressing concerns. People may wish to help or change rather than to seek punishment of individuals.
In response, we are establishing an anonymous system for raising concerns or seeking advice. We believe this step will reduce hesitations to reach out, open a true dialogue, and give us a timely, ongoing sense of the changes needed across our units, meetings, and department.
Addressing Disparities in Mental Health Care Historically, the country has featured separate and unequal tracks of mental health services—one for patients with insurance and one for those without. The disparity in access for the latter group has clear implications for both mental and physical health. People with untreated and undertreated mental illness often die several decades before other patients when it comes to conditions such as heart failure and metabolic disease. In addition to the personal burden, these costs weigh heavily on health care expenditures.
We acknowledge equitable solutions to access will take time, and we do not yet have specific projects to announce. But we do have immediate efforts to revamp the care we provide in our clinics. Too often, diagnoses and treatments across psychiatry and psychology have been biased (unconsciously or not) by race and socioeconomic status. For example, BIPOC patients continue to get over-diagnosed with schizophrenia and psychosis.
As a field, we need to assess and account for factors such as exposure to racism, disadvantage, and other trauma—as well as the intergenerational transfer of that trauma. To that end, our committee:
Seeks to integrate areas where psychiatry and psychology trainees can learn together, right from the start, so providers in both disciplines will think about patients in a more diverse and inclusive manner
Aims to improve training across Mount Sinai, so clinicians can better assess trauma and help a diverse range of patients
Works with ongoing clinical meetings to update longstanding protocols and procedures
Plans to launch a public seminar series on diversity, equity, and inclusion, based on lectures provided to various Mount Sinai departments
Accounting for Social Determinants of Mental Health We need to challenge existing conventions and assumptions in psychology and psychiatry. For too long, we have overemphasized the small role played by inherited genetic variants and also allowed a racialized biology to linger. While the DSM-5 Steering Committee recently removed language tying biological factors to differences in outcomes by race, we must still place the true drivers of psychological distress and psychiatric disorders front and center.
Those factors come in the form of social determinants of mental health—based on the similar line of research showing one can predict residents’ physical health by zip code. These determinants start very early in life and can include:
Amount of food you can access, as well as the type and quality
Experience with racism, stress, and other trauma
Exposure to toxins because of community environment and infrastructure
Lack of access to outdoor space and greenery
Living with inadequate heating and cooling
At Mount Sinai, we are working to incorporate a comprehensive cultural assessment of every patient in our department. It is a significant undertaking—clinicians must take a nuanced approach for each patient and determine how and when to make inquiries—but a necessary one. Doing so can provide the care each patient needs and deserves.
Promoting Diversity Through Research and Looking to the Future Research represents a final area of focus for our committee—both supporting BIPOC researchers applying for grants and also promoting projects that may lead to more equitable and inclusive mental health care. While the National Institute of Mental Health has shown a greater openness toward funding such work, we will advocate for further movement in this direction.
We know work by our committee and like-minded supporters in our field may ultimately take generations. But we need to start somewhere. We hope to make substantive change in the near term, then continue to build off those improvements—to support our team members, our patients, and their families. By working together, we can make a positive and valuable impact.
CARES staff from left to right: Chang (Betty) Wang, MD (child and adolescent psychiatry fellow); Aliza Grossberg, MD (PGY-2); Margaret Rauen, PhD (psychologist).
The Comprehensive Adolescent Rehabilitation and Education Service (CARES) at Mount Sinai Morningside integrates intensive psychological treatment with a complete high school education through the New York City Department of Education’s ReStart Academy (District 79), and it is the only one of its kind in the country.
In recognition of Transgender Day of Remembrance and with input from students, the CARES community put together events celebrating transgender and gender diverse identities. Students and staff had discussions throughout the week on the significance of Transgender Day of Remembrance, followed by an optional viewing of Disclosure, a documentary highlighting how transgender people have been represented in film and television. Students were also able to opt-in to watching a shorter video on Schuyler Bailar, the first openly transgender NCAA Division I swimmer. During the week, students and staff wore Transgender Pride Flag stickers, as well as individual pronoun stickers, and the CARES team hung a Transgender Pride Flag that will remain up throughout the year.
Seventeen renowned faculty members at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai have been honored with Mount Sinai’s 2021 endowed professorships for their dedication to excellence in research, education, and clinical care. They are:
Oren J. Becher, MD
Oren J. Becher, MD, Steven Ravitch Chair in Pediatric Hematology
Oren J. Becher, MD, is the Chief of the Jack Martin Division of Pediatric Hematology-Oncology at Mount Sinai Kravis Children’s Hospital and Professor of Pediatrics at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Dr. Becher is a physician-scientist focused on improving the standard of care for children with brain tumors, particularly diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma—or, DIPG—an incurable pediatric brain cancer. He joined Mount Sinai in 2021 from the Northwestern University School of Medicine where in addition to appointments in the Department of Pediatrics and the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics, he also maintained clinical responsibilities at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago.
By studying the function of the genetic alterations present in DIPG, Dr. Becher’s laboratory co-discovered the presence of somatic activating mutations in a gene not previously implicated in cancer, called ACVR1 or ALK2, in 25 percent of children with DIPG, and subsequently developed genetically engineered mouse models that recapitulate the genetic alterations of the human disease. Additionally, Dr. Becher’s laboratory has expanded efforts to develop models for other pediatric brain cancer subtypes, using these models to study the tumor microenvironment and to evaluate novel therapeutics that help prioritize clinical trials for children with DIPG.
Dr. Becher obtained his Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Pennsylvania and his medical degree from Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. He completed his pediatric residency at the Children’s National Medical Center in Washington, D.C. and fellowships in pediatric hematology-oncology and neuro-oncology at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.
Supinda Bunyavanich, MD, MPH, MPhil
Supinda Bunyavanich, MD, MPH, MPhil, Mount Sinai Professor in Allergy and Systems Biology
Bunyavanich, MD, MPH, MPhil is a Professor of Pediatrics and Professor of Genetics and Genomic Sciences at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Dr. Bunyavanich is also a practicing allergist and immunologist and the Associate Director of the Jaffe Food Allergy Institute.
Dr. Bunyavanich’s research, funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), combines tools in epidemiology, multi-omics, and systems biology to elucidate and understand the pathobiology of asthma and allergic diseases. Her research group works with human cohorts to identify risk factors, mechanisms, and potential therapies for these disorders using data science and integrative -omics approaches. Findings from her lab include the identification of a nasal biomarker of asthma by machine learning analyses of nasal transcriptome data, characterization of the airway and gut microbiomes in asthma and food allergy, and identification of master regulator genes of peanut allergy and asthma.
In addition to directing a research group at Mount Sinai, Dr. Bunyavanich provides patient care as a clinical allergist and immunologist, teaches medical and graduate students, and mentors pre- and post-doctoral trainees. She has mentored more than 70 trainees who have gone on to graduate and medical school and faculty positions. Dr. Bunyavanich is a frequent invited speaker at national and international meetings, and serves as a grant reviewer and on advisory groups for the NIH. Dr. Bunyavanich received the Harvard Medical School Shore Award for Scholars in Medicine and is recognized as a Castle Connelly Exceptional Woman in Medicine.
Dr. Bunyavanich earned her undergraduate degree from Harvard University, MD from Harvard Medical School, MPH from the Harvard School of Public Health, and MPhil from the University of Cambridge. She completed her internal medicine residency at Massachusetts General Hospital-Harvard Medical School, her allergy and immunology fellowship at Brigham & Women’s Hospital-Harvard Medical School, and her postdoctoral research fellowship at the Channing Division of Network Medicine, Brigham & Women’s Hospital-Harvard Medical School.
Kirk N. Campbell, MD
Kirk N. Campbell, MD, Irene and Dr. Arthur M. Fishberg Professor of Medicine
Kirk N. Campbell, MD, is Associate Professor of Medicine (Nephrology), Vice Chair for Diversity and Inclusion, and Director of the Nephrology Fellowship Program at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Dr. Campbell is a physician-scientist working to characterize novel pathways in kidney podocyte injury and survival. His clinical interest is in human glomerular disease.
In addition to treating patients, Dr. Campbell advances the understanding of the underlying mechanisms of glomerular disease progression while identifying potential targets for therapeutic intervention. He leads an NIH-funded research program focused on podocyte cell biology, experimental glomerular disease, and clinical trials in the rare kidney disease space. Key findings include the identification of dendrin and the Hippo pathways target Yes-associated protein (YAP) as regulators of podocyte survival and plasminogen as a targetable biomarker in glomerular disease. Dr. Campbell has been a principal investigator for clinical trials testing the safety and efficacy of agents in development for focal segmental glomerulosclerosis, IgA nephropathy, membranous nephropathy, and lupus nephritis.
Dr. Campbell received his medical degree from the University of Connecticut and completed his internal medicine residency at Yale University before conducting clinical and research training in nephrology at Mount Sinai. He is an elected member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation, Past-President of the New York Society of Nephrology, a member of the Board of Directors of the Nephcure Foundation, and a standing member of the Pathobiology of Kidney Disease study section at the National Institutes of Health. Dr. Campbell also serves on the Medical Advisory Board of the National Kidney Foundation of Greater New York, and is a member of the American Society of Nephrology’s grants review and kidney week education committees.
Kecia N. Carroll, MD, MPH
Kecia N. Carroll, MD, MPH, Debra and Leon Black Professor in Pediatrics
Kecia N. Carroll, MD, MPH, is Chief of the Division of General Pediatrics, Professor of Pediatrics, and Environmental Medicine and Public Health at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Dr. Carroll is a board-certified general pediatrician, clinical investigator, and epidemiologist. She joined Mount Sinai in 2021 from Vanderbilt University Medical Center, where in addition to a faculty appointment in the Department of Pediatrics, she also served as the Director of Faculty Inclusion and Diversity in the Pediatric Office of Faculty Development, and Chair of the Diversity Committee for the Master of Public Health program.
While at Vanderbilt, Dr. Carroll spearheaded efforts to foster an inclusive environment and created mentoring and career development opportunities for faculty, trainees, and students. She serves as a mentor for faculty and trainees across various career stages and academic tracks. Through her K24 Midcareer Investigator Award funded by the National Heart, Lung & Blood Institute through the National Institutes of Health, she mentors early career investigators and contributes to efforts supporting research mentor training.
Dr. Carroll’s current NIH-funded research program investigates how environmental exposures—including stress, nutritional exposures, and environmental toxicants—during critical periods of development influence childhood asthma risk, with a focus on potential modifiable risk factors. At Mount Sinai, she collaborates with investigators across the Health System, including within the Institute for Exposomic Research.
Dr. Carroll obtained her Bachelor of Arts degree from Vassar College and her medical degree from Vanderbilt University School of Medicine. She completed her pediatric residency at the University of California San Francisco and a general academic pediatrics research fellowship at Vanderbilt.
Jaime Chu, MD
Jaime Chu, MD, Mount Sinai Professor in Pediatric Liver Research
Jaime Chu, MD, is the Associate Chief of the Division of Pediatric Hepatology, Medical Director of Pediatric Liver Transplantation, and Director of the Pediatric Physician-Scientist Residency Program at Mount Sinai Kravis Children’s Hospital and the Recanati/Miller Transplantation Institute at Mount Sinai, where she mentors resident and fellow trainees interested in pursuing a career as a physician-scientist.
Dr. Chu is a physician-scientist in pediatric hepatology. Her long-term goal is to utilize collaborative science and integrate basic and clinical research towards improving our understanding of the mechanisms underlying pediatric liver disease and to apply this knowledge towards the development of much needed therapeutic options for children with liver disease.
She is the Director of the Molecular Liver Physiology and Metabolism Lab, where she leads a basic research group that focuses on how sugar metabolism pathways work together to regulate liver development and disease. Dr. Chu’s team capitalizes on the strength of the zebrafish as a tool to investigate metabolic mechanisms of liver fibrosis and test potential anti-fibrotic therapies.
Dr. Chu’s clinical research includes participation as site Principal Investigator and Co-Investigator in NIH-funded consortia, including a U01-funded project in pediatric acute liver failure and other industry-sponsored pediatric drug trials for genetic cholestatic liver disease, biliary atresia, and viral hepatitis. Her research has been awarded the Gilead Sciences Research Scholars Liver Disease Award, American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases (AASLD) Foundation Bridge Award, and funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH)/National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) to examine the role of mannose metabolism in liver fibrosis. Dr. Chu is a member of the NIDDK Study Section for Fellowship Awards and was selected to serve as a member of the AASLD Task Force on COVID-19.
She received her BA magna cum laude from Harvard University and her MD from New York University School of Medicine. She completed her General Pediatrics residency training at Northwestern University/Children’s Memorial Hospital (now Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago) and her fellowship in Pediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology, and Nutrition both at Children’s Memorial Hospital and at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine.
Kristen Dams-O’Connor, PhD
Kristen Dams-O’Connor, PhD, Jack Nash Professor of Rehabilitation Medicine
Kristen Dams-O’Connor, PhD, is Director of the Brain Injury Research Center of Mount Sinai and Professor in the Departments of Rehabilitation Medicine and Neurology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.
Dr. Dams-O’Connor conducts multidisciplinary research dedicated to improving the lives of people living with brain injury. Her work aims to identify mechanisms, risk, and protective factors to improve long-term outcomes in individuals with traumatic brain injury (TBI) and repetitive head trauma sustained through sports participation, military service, and intimate partner violence. Her team uses modern psychometric and statistical techniques to measure individual differences in trajectories of change over time among survivors of TBI. One goal of this work is to improve diagnosis of secondary post-traumatic conditions during life so they can be treated.
Dr. Dams-O’Connor also leads the Late Effects of TBI Project, a TBI brain donor program focused on characterizing the clinical phenotype and postmortem pathological signatures of post-traumatic neurodegeneration and their associations with Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias. She is Project Director of the New York Traumatic Brain Injury Model System of Care, one of 16 centers of excellence for TBI research and clinical care in the United States.
Her research is supported by federal grants from the National Institutes of Health, the National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research, the United States Department of Defense, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute. Dr. Dams-O’Connor has published more than 150 manuscripts and chapters on TBI treatments and outcomes, and has presented her research internationally.
Thomas J. Fuchs, Dr.sc.
Thomas J. Fuchs, Dr.sc., Mount Sinai Chair in Artificial Intelligence and Human Health
Thomas J. Fuchs, Dr.sc. is a scientist in the groundbreaking field of computational pathology, focused on the use of artificial intelligence (AI) to analyze images of tissue samples to identify disease, recommend treatment, and predict outcome. In October 2020, he was appointed Co-Director of the Hasso Plattner Institute for Digital Health at Mount Sinai, Dean of Artificial Intelligence and Human Health, and Professor of Computational Pathology and Computer Science at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. In this role, Dr. Fuchs leads the next generation of scientists and clinicians using artificial intelligence and machine learning to develop novel diagnostics and treatments for acute and chronic disease.
Dr. Fuchs’s work includes developing novel methods for analysis of digital microscopy slides to better understand genetic mutations and their influence on changes in tissues. He has been recognized for developing large-scale systems for mapping the pathology, origins, and progress of cancer. This breakthrough was achieved by building a high-performance compute cluster to train deep neural networks at petabyte scale.
Before joining Mount Sinai, Dr. Fuchs was Director of the Warren Alpert Center for Digital and Computational Pathology at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK) and Associate Professor at Weill Cornell Graduate School for Medical Sciences. At MSK, he led a laboratory focused on computational pathology and medical machine learning. Dr. Fuchs also co-founded Paige.AI in 2017 and led its initial growth to the leading AI company in pathology. He is a former research technologist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and visiting scientist at the California Institute of Technology. Dr. Fuchs holds a Doctor of Science in Machine Learning from ETH Zurich and a MS in Technical Mathematics from Graz Technical University in Austria.
Alison M. Goate, DPhil
Alison M. Goate, DPhil, Jean C. and James W. Crystal Professor and Chair of Genomics
Alison M. Goate, DPhil, is the Jean C and James W. Crystal Professor of Genomics and Chair of the Department of Genetics and Genomic Sciences at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. She has worked on the genetics of neurodegenerative diseases including Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and Frontotemporal Dementia (FTD) since 1987, and is the founding director of the Ronald M. Loeb Center for Alzheimer’s Disease at Mount Sinai.
Over the last three decades, Dr. Goate has been part of many gene finding teams that have successfully identified disease-causing variants for both AD and FTD. While working at Imperial College in London, she reported the first mutation to cause familial Alzheimer’s disease, and her early studies at Washington University in St. Louis identified a genetic mutation in Colombian families that are now part of the Alzheimer’s Prevention Initiative clinical trial. Her lab was also part of the team that first reported MAPT mutations in FTD.
Dr. Goate is also a leader in the study of late onset AD genetics using integrative genomic approaches to identify novel genetic risk factors. Her work led to the identification of Trem2 as a risk factor for AD and has highlighted the enrichment of AD risk variants in microglial enhancers, regulatory elements in DNA that control gene expression in immune cells of the brain. Dr. Goate is now building upon these insights using genome editing in induced pluripotent stem cells to understand the molecular mechanisms of disease and to develop novel therapeutics.
Dr. Goate has received the Potamkin Award, the Khalid Iqbal Lifetime Achievement Award from the Alzheimer’s Association, and the MetLife Award for her research on AD. She was elected a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2012, and a fellow of the National Academy of Medicine in 2016.
Rita Z. Goldstein, PhD
Rita Z. Goldstein, PhD, Mount Sinai Professor in Neuroimaging of Addiction
Rita Z. Goldstein, PhD, is a Professor of Psychiatry with a secondary appointment in the Department of Neuroscience at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Dr. Goldstein is Chief of the Neuropsychoimaging of Addiction and Related Conditions research group.
Nationally and internationally known for her neuroimaging and neuropsychological studies in drug addiction, Dr. Goldstein formulated a theoretical model known as Impaired Response Inhibition and Salience Attribution (iRISA). Multiple neuroimaging modalities—including MRI, EEG/ERP, PET—and neuropsychological tests are used to explore the neurobiological underpinnings of iRISA in drug addiction and related conditions. This model has drawn considerable scientific attention (exceeding 2,850 for a review published in the Am J Psychiatry in 2002 and 1,970 for another review published in Nature Reviews Neuroscience in 2011). An important application of Dr. Goldstein’s research is to facilitate the development of intervention modalities that would improve cognitive and emotional function, leading to better treatment outcomes, in drug addiction and other chronically relapsing disorders of self-regulation.
Dr. Goldstein has authored or co-authored more than 145 highly cited, peer-reviewed manuscripts and book chapters focusing on the role of the prefrontal cortex in drug addiction. Her research has been independently funded by several federal and private agencies, with total funding of more than $20 million as a principal or multiple investigator or program director. She became a fellow of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology in 2015, receiving the prestigious Joel Elkes Research Award in 2012 and the Jacob P. Waletzky Award in 2013.
Mentoring is a high priority for Dr. Goldstein. She has mentored numerous trainees, spanning from postdoctoral fellows to graduate, undergraduate, and high school students. Her trainees have published many first authorship manuscripts in top psychiatry and neuroscience journals, have become principal investigators on their own NIH-funded grants, and many of them are now leading independent research labs at prestigious institutions.
Dr. Goldstein earned an undergraduate degree from Tel Aviv University in Israel. She received her PhD in Health Clinical Psychology from the University of Miami after completing a yearlong internship in clinical neuropsychology at the Long Island Jewish Medical Center. She then completed her postdoctoral training on brain imaging and alcohol abuse through a fellowship from the National Institutes of Health at Brookhaven National Laboratory.
Emma Guttman-Yassky, MD, PhD
Emma Guttman-Yassky, MD, PhD, Waldman Chair of Dermatology
Emma Guttman-Yassky, MD, PhD, is the Waldman Professor and System Chair of The Kimberly and Eric J. Waldman Department of Dermatology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. A world-renowned dermatologist and physician scientist, Dr. Guttman-Yassky divides her time between a busy clinic and her laboratory that investigates the mechanisms underlying inflammatory skin diseases, leading to novel treatments for these patients.
Dr. Guttman-Yassky’s major clinical and research area of expertise is inflammatory skin diseases, with major focus on eczema/atopic dermatitis (AD) and alopecia areata, as well as other inflammatory skin diseases. She made paradigm-shifting discoveries on the immunologic basis of AD/eczema in humans, opening the door to new therapeutics. Dr. Guttman has developed the only comprehensive molecular maps of AD, defining skin differentiation and immune-circuits characterizing this disease.
Her research on atopic dermatitis/eczema has contributed to many of the recently developed treatments for this disease, earning her a unique place as one of the leaders in dermatology and immunology worldwide. She has also shown that AD is a complex disease with distinct phenotypes based on ethnicity, age, and other factors. She has shown that atopic dermatitis in Asian and African American patients is different from atopic dermatitis in European American patients, with important therapeutic implications. She is now testing (both clinically and mechanistically) multiple targeted-therapeutics for atopic dermatitis. She has recently also extended her research interest to alopecia areata in which her findings are also translated to novel therapeutic targets.
Dr. Guttman-Yassky is considered one of the world’s leading experts in inflammatory skin diseases and authored more than 250 articles and is often invited as a keynote and plenary speaker to multiple international and national meetings. She co-founded the International Eczema Council, for which she functions as immediate past president. This organization now comprises the vast majority of top experts in atopic dermatitis/eczema worldwide. She is also on the scientific advisory board of the National Eczema Association and the board of the American Skin Association. She was also elected to the American Society for Clinical Investigation and the American Dermatological Society, and she has received the Young Investigator Award from the American Academy of Dermatology, the Bettina C. Hilman, MD Lectureship and Award from the American Academy of Allergy and Immunology that honors a pioneer in allergy research whose contributions to science and medicine impacted patients’ lives, the Donald Y. M. Leung, MD, PhD-JACI Editors Lectureship and Faculty Development Award, and many other awards.
She earned her MD from Sackler at the Tel-Aviv University, and a PhD degree from the Bar-Ilan University, Israel. After her Israeli Board certification in dermatology in Israel, Dr. Guttman-Yassky moved to the U.S. for a postdoctoral fellowship at The Rockefeller University. She then became board-certified in the U.S. after a second dermatology residency training at Weill Cornell Medical College.
Girish N. Nadkarni, MD, MPH
Girish N. Nadkarni, MD, MPH, Irene and Dr. Arthur M. Fishberg Professor of Medicine
Girish N. Nadkarni, MD, MPH, is Associate Professor of Medicine (Nephrology) with tenure at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. As an expert physician-scientist, Dr. Nadkarni bridges the gap between comprehensive clinical care and innovative research. He is the Chief of the Division of Data Driven and Digital Medicine (D3M), the Co-Chair of the Executive Management Team of the Mount Sinai Clinical Intelligence Center (MSCIC), the Clinical Director of the Hasso Plattner Institute for Digital Health at Mount Sinai, as well as a core faculty member in the Charles Bronfman Institute for Personalized Medicine.
Before completing his medical degree at one of the top-ranked medical colleges in India, Dr. Nadkarni received training in mathematics. He then received a master’s degree in public health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and then was a research associate at the Johns Hopkins Medical Institute. Dr. Nadkarni completed his residency in internal medicine and his clinical fellowship in nephrology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. He then completed a research fellowship in personalized medicine and informatics at the Charles Bronfman Institute Personalized Medicine, where he was mentored by Dr. Erwin Bottinger.
Dr. Nadkarni has authored more than 200 peer-reviewed scientific publications, including articles in the New England Journal of Medicine, the Journal of the American Medical Association, the Annals of Internal Medicine and Nature Medicine. Dr. Nadkarni is the principal or co-investigator for several grants funded by the National Institutes of Health focusing on informatics, data science, and precision medicine. He is also one of the multiple principal investigators of the NIH RECOVER consortium focusing on the long term sequelae of COVID-19. He has several patents, and is also the scientific co-founder of investor-backed companies—one of which, Renalytix, is listed on NASDAQ. In recognition of his work as an active clinician and investigator, he has received several awards and honors, including the Dr. Harold and Golden Lamport Research Award and the Deal of the Year Award from Mount Sinai Innovation Partners for his work with Renalytix.
Louis R. Pasquale, MD, FARVO
Louis R. Pasquale, MD, FARVO, Shelley and Steven Einhorn Distinguished Chair of Ophthalmology
Louis R. Pasquale, MD, FARVO, joined Mount Sinai in 2018 as Professor of Ophthalmology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and Site Chair of Ophthalmology at The Mount Sinai Hospital and Mount Sinai Queens. Prior to joining Mount Sinai, he worked at Massachusetts Eye and Ear, a teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School, for 25 years. There, he rose to the rank of Professor of Ophthalmology and Distinguished Scholar in Ophthalmology at Harvard Medical School as well as Director of the Glaucoma Service at Massachusetts Eye and Ear.
With continuous support from the National Institutes of Health since 2006, Dr. Pasquale’s research has focused on the discovery of primary prevention strategies in open-angle glaucoma. His work has highlighted the role of environmental risk factors for exfoliation syndrome and the importance of nitric oxide signaling in primary open-angle glaucoma. He has also contributed to resolving the complex genetic architecture of primary open-angle glaucoma. His work is highly impactful with more than 309 publications in PubMed and an h-index of 68.
Dr. Pasquale is a member of the editorial boards of Ophthalmology Glaucoma, International Glaucoma Review, Asia-Pacific Journal of Ophthalmology, and the American Journal of Ophthalmology. He served as a member of the National Institutes of Health’s National Advisory Eye Council. He is currently the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (ARVO) Glaucoma Section Trustee and a Gold Fellow of ARVO. Finally, he is a member of the American Ophthalmological Society and the Glaucoma Research Society.
Dr. Pasquale earned his medical degree at the State University of New York Stony Brook School of Medicine. He completed an internal medicine internship at Bronx Municipal Hospital, an ophthalmology residency at Temple University Hospital, and a two-year fellowship in glaucoma at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.
Leslee J. Shaw, PhD
Leslee J. Shaw, PhD,Mount Sinai Professor in Women’s Health Research
Leslee J. Shaw, PhD, is an internationally recognized cardiovascular outcomes researcher, with a strong focus on women’s health that encompasses quality, equity, and evaluation of cardiovascular diseases such as atherosclerosis in women. Before joining the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in 2021, she directed the Dalio Institute at Weill Cornell Medical College. Prior to her time at Weill Cornell, Dr. Shaw held the R. Bruce Logue Professorship at the Emory University School of Medicine.
At Mount Sinai, Dr. Shaw holds a triple primary appointment in Medicine (Cardiology), Population Health Science and Policy, and Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Science, and serves as Director of The Blavatnik Family Women’s Health Research Institute. Through this arrangement, Dr. Shaw will expand upon the Institute’s goals for interdisciplinary collaboration in women’s health, and her strong commitment to mentoring and faculty development will enhance collaboration with junior faculty within the Institute.
Dr. Shaw has published more than 760 publications and presented more than 400 abstracts in major scientific meetings in the United States, Europe, Asia, and South America. She has been ranked for more than a decade as one of the top 1 percent of clinical researchers with the most highly cited publications, awarded by Thomson Reuters. Based on her scientific contributions, Dr. Shaw received from the American College of Cardiology the Simon Dack Award for academic excellence in 2009, and, in 2013, the Coalition to Reduce Disparities in Cardiovascular Disease Outcomes Award for her studies on racial and ethnic differences in cardiovascular disease. Also in 2013, she received the Women’s Day Red Dress Award for her scientific contributions to women’s health. Recently, in 2020, Dr. Shaw was awarded the Bernadine Healy Leadership Award in Women’s Cardiovascular Disease from the American College of Cardiology, the Nanette Wenger Award from the American Society of Preventive Cardiology, and the Distinguished Investigator Award from the Academy for Radiology and Biomedical Imaging Research.
Joseph A. Sparano, MD
Joseph A. Sparano, MD, Ezra M. Greenspan, MD Professor in Clinical Cancer Care Therapeutics
Joseph A. Sparano, MD, an internationally-recognized expert in the management of breast cancer and HIV-associated malignancies, is Chief of the Division of Hematology and Medical Oncology for the Mount Sinai Health System and Deputy Director of The Tisch Cancer Institute. Dr. Sparano joined Mount Sinai in 2021 following a distinguished 33-year career at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and Montefiore Medical Center, where he was Professor of Medicine and Obstetrics & Gynecology and Women’s Health, Associate Chairman for Clinical Research in the Department of Oncology, and Associate Director for Clinical Research at the Albert Einstein Cancer Center.
Dr. Sparano led a breakthrough clinical trial in breast cancer research, the Trial Assigning Individualized Options for Treatment, known as TAILORx—the first and largest National Cancer Institute (NCI) precision medicine trial. It integrated the 21-gene expression assay into clinical decision making for adjuvant therapy of early stage ER-positive, HER2-negative breast cancer. The trial led to changes in treatment guidelines from both the American Society of Clinical Oncology and the National Comprehensive Cancer Network. TAILORx results were published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2015, 2018, and 2019. Dr. Sparano also led an effort to develop and validate a new tool integrating clinical and genomic information to guide adjuvant therapy for breast cancer which became freely available for widespread clinical use after publication in the Journal of Clinical Oncology in 2021. Evidence generated from another trial that he led which evaluated the role of taxane therapy in early breast cancer, published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2008, has also had an important and enduring impact on standard clinical practice guidelines.
Dr. Sparano has conducted impactful studies aimed at improving the outcomes of HIV‐positive patients with cancer, including research on novel approaches for treating non‐Hodgkin lymphoma and anal cancer in individuals with HIV. He has also focused his research on improving racial disparities in cancer care and on cancer metastasis. Dr. Sparano’s research has been funded by the NCI as well as the Breast Cancer Research Foundation, Susan G. Komen Foundation, and V Foundation.
Dr. Sparano is Chair and Principal Investigator of the AIDS Malignancy Consortium, a network of clinical trial sites in the U.S., Africa, and Latin America. He serves as Deputy Chair of the Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group (ECOG)-American College of Radiology Imaging Network Cancer Research Group, and is a member of the Board of Managers of the PreECOG Research Foundation and the Early Breast Cancer Trialists’ Collaborative Group Steering Committee. He is a recipient of some of the most prestigious awards in the field of medical oncology, including the ECOG Young Investigator Award, the Charles Moertel Award and Lecture by the Alliance for Cancer Clinical Trials, the American Association for Cancer Research William L. McGuire Award and Lecture, and the American Society of Clinical Oncology Gianni Bonadonna Award and Lecture.
Filip K. Swirski, PhD
Filip K. Swirski, PhD, Arthur and Janet C. Ross Professor of Medicine
Filip K. Swirski, PhD, is the Arthur and Janet C. Ross Professor of Medicine and Professor of Diagnostic, Molecular and Interventional Radiology as well as Director of the Cardiovascular Research Institute at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. He has secondary appointments at the Precision Immunology Institute and the BioMedical Engineering and Imaging Institute. Dr. Swirski obtained his PhD at McMaster University in Hamilton, Canada, and postdoctoral studies at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. Dr. Swirski was Professor at Harvard Medical School and Principal Investigator at Massachusetts General Hospital before joining Mount Sinai in 2021.
Dr. Swirski has been recognized nationally and internationally as a leader in the field of innate immunity and inflammation in disease. He focuses on fundamental and translational cardiovascular science within the context of the hematologic, immune, metabolic, and nervous systems, with specific emphasis on cell development, communication, and function. Recently, his work has expanded to include lifestyle factors such as sleep, diet, and stress as critical modulators of cardiovascular health and hematopoiesis.
Dr. Swirski is a highly cited researcher and is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Jeffrey M. Hoeg Award from the American Heart Association, the William Harvey Lecture from the European Society of Cardiology, the Martin Prize for Fundamental Research, and the Howard M. Goodman Fellowship, and he was also the Patricia and Scott Eston Research Scholar at Massachusetts General Hospital. Dr. Swirski has been continuously funded by the National Institutes of Health. He holds an Outstanding Investigator Award from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, an Established Investigator Award from the American Heart Association, and is the North American Coordinator of a Leducq Foundation Transatlantic Network of Excellence Consortium.
Rachel Yehuda, PhD
Rachel Yehuda, PhD, Mount Sinai Professor in Psychiatry and Neuroscience of Trauma
Rachel Yehuda, PhD, is Professor and Vice Chair of Psychiatry for Veterans Affairs, and Professor of Neuroscience at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. She is also the Mental Health Director at the Bronx Veterans Affairs Medical Center.
A recognized leader in the field of traumatic stress studies, Dr. Yehuda has authored more than 500 papers and received numerous grants and awards in the field of traumatic stress and the neuroscience of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Throughout her career, her research has focused on the study of the enduring effects of trauma exposure in multiple populations such as combat veterans, Holocaust survivors, and victims of 9/11 and interpersonal violence. These studies have examined the relationship between the biological and psychological changes associated with trauma.
Dr. Yehuda’s pioneering work has resulted in an understanding of the epigenetic changes associated with trauma and PTSD, and also molecular alterations in association with intergenerational trauma. Dr. Yehuda’s laboratory has investigated novel treatment approaches for PTSD and the biological factors that may contribute to differing treatment outcomes for the purpose of developing personalized medicine strategies for treatment matching in PTSD. This work has resulted in an approved U.S. patent for a PTSD blood test. Her laboratory is also using advances in stem cell technology to examine PTSD gene expression networks in induced neurons. Most recently, Dr. Yehuda established the Center for Psychedelic Psychotherapy and Trauma Research at Mount Sinai, which integrates sophisticated brain imaging and molecular neuroscience in PTSD with clinical trials using psilocybin and MDMA-assisted psychotherapy and other related medicines.
Bin Zhang, PhD
Bin Zhang, PhD, Willard T.C. Johnson Research Professor of Neurogenetics
Bin Zhang, PhD, is a Professor of Genetics and Genomic Sciences and the Director of the Center for Transformative Disease Modeling at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Prior to joining Mount Sinai, Dr. Zhang worked as a Principal Scientist and Group Leader of Network Biology at Sage Bionetworks, a non-profit research organization started that grew out of Rosetta Inpharmatics, a wholly owned subsidiary of Merck & Co. Dr. Zhang earned his PhD and a master’s degree in Computer Science from the State University of New York at Buffalo, a master’s degree in electronic engineering from Tsinghua University, Beijing, China, and a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from Tongji University, Shanghai, China.
Dr. Zhang’s extensive experience in electrical engineering and computer science empowers him to build highly predictive models for very complex data from handwritten document images to large-scale disease multi-Omics data. His expertise lies in data mining, pattern recognition, and systems biology. Over the past decade, Dr. Zhang has developed a series of influential gene network inference algorithms which have been extensively used for identification of novel pathways and gene targets, as well as development of drugs for human diseases such as cancer, Alzheimer’s, obesity, and diabetes.
Dr. Zhang is leading the effort of integrative multiscale network biology modeling of large-scale multi-Omics data in complex human diseases including cancer, diabetes, depression, Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease, influenza and Zika infection, and COVID-19, as well as pollution-induced asthma. Building upon highly robust and predictive mechanistic network models underlying these diseases, he is developing novel therapeutics for these illnesses using the state-of-the-art artificial intelligence and machine learning approaches.
A prolific researcher, Dr. Zhang has published 190 papers including a number of high profile papers in Nature, Science, Cell, and Nature Genetics. His research on cancer established the first set of data driven predictive gene network models and driver genes of molecular alterations in breast cancer, primary melanoma, and gastric cancer. Such effort has been extended to more than 30 cancer types. His research on the genetic networks and regulators of Parkinson’s disease opens up a new avenue for studying the disease. His research that uncovered an immune/microglia gene network causally linked to Alzheimer’s disease (AD) was published in Cell in 2013 and selected by the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease as one of the top 50 most influential papers on AD published from 2013 to 2017. His subsequent research in this direction further systematically identified molecular signatures underlying selective regional vulnerability to AD and reconstructed neuronal gene subnetworks dysregulated in AD. More importantly, he recently uncovered three major molecular subtypes of AD, which are independent of age and disease stage. Novel compounds are being developed for targeting the network models and key drivers of AD. These studies led by Dr. Zhang provide a foundation for determining more effective biomarkers for early prediction of AD, studying causal mechanisms of AD, developing next generation therapeutics for AD, and designing more effective and targeted clinical trials, ultimately leading to precision medicine for AD.
