Updated on Jun 30, 2022 | Featured, Research
Miriam Merad, MD, PhD
The Mount Sinai Health System has announced a transformative multimillion-dollar gift from Marc Lipschultz, who serves on Mount Sinai’s Boards of Trustees, and his wife, Jennifer, to the Precision Immunology Institute (PrIISM) at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.
PrIISM has undertaken an innovative and ambitious research agenda aimed at understanding the immune system’s universal role in human health, with the goal of combatting and preventing the world’s most devastating diseases. Marc and Jennifer Lipschultz’s generous support will strengthen PrIISM’s core research programs and the institute will be renamed the Marc and Jennifer Lipschultz Precision Immunology Institute in recognition of their investment.
Nearly every disease has an immune component, making PrIISM’s work particularly important. PrIISM is led by Director Miriam Merad, MD, PhD, a renowned physician-scientist and global leader in immunology, who also serves as Director of the Mount Sinai Human Immune Monitoring Center and Professor of Medicine (Hematology and Medical Oncology).
“We are so thankful to Marc and Jennifer Lipschultz for their visionary support of PrIISM,” says Dr. Merad. “Their gift will allow us to expand our research and drive breakthroughs in immunology that will help us better understand and target the underlying foundations of major human disease.”
Under Dr. Merad’s leadership, PrIISM is already making pivotal advances in precision medicine and developing novel technologies to revolutionize the diagnosis and treatment of a broad spectrum of diseases, including cancer, neurodegeneration, atherosclerosis, and aging.
Brian Brown, PhD, Associate Director of PrIISM, leads the development of new cell and gene engineering approaches to understand and manipulate the immune system.
“The Lipschultz’s generous investment is extremely timely and will help us harness the extraordinary advances in our understanding of the human immune system to develop novel targets of diseases,” says Dr. Brown.
“Jennifer and I are proud to support the revolutionary immunology research at PrIISM,” says Mr. Lipschultz. “We are excited to see how this meaningful work will transform the future of medicine and make a true difference in the lives of patients at Mount Sinai and beyond.”
Updated on Nov 19, 2025 | Artificial Intelligence, Featured, Research
David Windreich
Thanks to the outstanding generosity of the Windreich Family Foundation, the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai will advance its vision of integrating Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning into research and clinical practice to amplify patient-centered care. This multi-million dollar gift will establish the Windreich Department of Artificial Intelligence and Human Health at Mount Sinai.
By establishing one of the first departments devoted to AI in a medical school, this gift represents Mount Sinai’s exceptional commitment to integrating AI throughout the Mount Sinai Health System. It will enable the recruitment of dedicated faculty, novel research initiatives, and the acquisition of any equipment and software that are mission critical to ensuring Mount Sinai continues to lead bold initiatives that embrace the power of technology to accelerate advances in both scientific research and clinical care.
Oversight of the newly named Windreich Department of Artificial Intelligence and Human Health will fall under the purview of its inaugural Chair, Thomas J. Fuchs, Dr.sc, who is also the Co-Director of the Hasso Plattner Institute for Digital Health at Mount Sinai. The new department was formed under the vision and guidance of Dennis S. Charney, MD, the Anne and Joel Ehrenkranz Dean of the Icahn School of Medicine. “This gift will ensure Mount Sinai continues to be at the forefront of the AI-driven revolution of health care to the benefit of Mount Sinai’s diverse patient population,” says Dr. Charney.
“Our duty at the new department at Mount Sinai is to ensure that our patients are the main beneficiaries of the enormous impact AI will have on health care,” says Dr. Fuchs. “To realize this vision, we are tremendously grateful for the gift from the Windreich Family Foundation. Mr. Windreich’s forward looking support will allow us to build a unique AI infrastructure at Mount Sinai and attract the world’s leading talent in this space.”
David Windreich, who serves on the Boards of Trustees at Mount Sinai, has a history of supporting AI and big data solutions in health care. His philanthropy extends to naming the Windreich Center for Bioinformatics at Mount Sinai. This Center is singularly focused on developing cutting-edge, web-based software tools and databases to facilitate the collection and analysis of diverse and complex data from human cells and tissues that will inform precise treatments for patients based on their unique genetic makeup. Mr. Windreich is also a former member of the Board of Directors for Sema4, a platform that uses machine learning and AI tools to analyze a database of more than 10 million patient genomic profiles and clinical records. Sema4 spun out of Mount Sinai in 2017 and went public at a $3 billion valuation in 2021.
“We have not yet reached the tipping point of how AI can play a major role in health care,” says Mr. Windreich. “My family is excited to play a role in supporting Mount Sinai’s initiative of being at the forefront of delivering technology solutions that will ultimately improve care and save lives.”
Oct 29, 2021 | Engagement, Featured, Research
Can the bacteria in your gut influence addictive behavior? That is the question that Katherine Meckel is studying and trying to answer. Currently a fifth-year PhD candidate in neuroscience at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, Ms. Meckel is one of 31 young scientists from across the country to be honored with the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Blueprint Diversity Specialized Predoctoral to Postdoctoral Advancement in Neuroscience (D-SPAN) Award.
The award will provide Ms. Meckel with a six-year, $447,000 fellowship to fund the remaining two years of her PhD studies, as well as four years of postdoctoral research. The D-SPAN Award recognizes outstanding trainees from historically underrepresented communities in the sciences.
Working in the lab of Drew D. Kiraly, MD, PhD, Ms. Meckel is drawing upon her background in gastroenterology and neuropharmacology to study the effects of the gut microbiome on gene expression and behavior in a rodent model of cocaine use disorder.
“When we look at human patients and also animal models of substance use disorders, we see highly altered gene expression in response to cocaine and other drugs of abuse,” she explains. “This seems to emerge from long-term adaptations or ‘molecular scars’ which affect the ability of gene sequences in the DNA to be accessed and expressed. My work seeks to understand how gut bacteria and the metabolites they produce regulate the structure and accessibility of the DNA, influencing gene expression and ultimately drug-seeking behaviors.”
Dr. Kiraly, her dissertation advisor, praises her tenacity in establishing a new line of research within the field of neuroscience. “Katherine has generated a tremendous amount of exciting data, which provides insight into the mechanisms of gut-brain communication,” says Dr. Kiraly, Assistant Professor of Psychiatry, and Neuroscience, at Icahn Mount Sinai. “Her work holds potential to uncover novel pathways for drug development, which may one day lead to much-needed treatments for patients with substance use disorders.”
Trusting Her Gut Intuition
As an undergraduate, Ms. Meckel pursued a rigorous five-year dual degree program in Voice Performance and Biochemistry at Lawrence University in Appleton, Wisconsin. There, she conducted neuropharmacology research under Bruce Hetzler, PhD, studying the effects of methylphenidate (Ritalin) on rodent behavior and visual processing.
After graduating, she joined the Section of Gastroenterology at the University of Chicago, working under Joel Pekow, MD, and Marc Bissonnette, MD, to study the effects of diet and metabolism on inflammatory bowel disease and colorectal cancer.
Ms. Meckel credits her time in gastroenterology for encouraging a more integrative physiological approach, which now informs her studies. “Often times in neuroscience, we study the brain in isolation,” she says. “But it’s important to consider that the brain exists in communication with the other peripheral organs throughout the body, and they influence each other’s activity.”
Building Community for Students With Disabilities
Ms. Meckel has also emerged as a leader in disability rights since joining Icahn Mount Sinai. Together with classmates Jessica Pintado Silva and Marisa Goff, she co-founded Disability Rights, Education, and Awareness at Mount Sinai (DREAMS), which provides peer mentoring and support to graduate students with visible and invisible disabilities.
“As a queer, disabled individual, I often compare living with invisible chronic illness to ‘being in the closet.’ If you didn’t know me well, you probably wouldn’t realize I am disabled,” she says. “But much of my life outside of lab is characterized by managing chronic health flares.”
Ms. Meckel expressed gratitude to her advisors and the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke for supporting her training. “I hope that my experience inspires disabled and chronically ill trainees to continue in the sciences,” she says. “So we can share our unique perspectives and bring new innovation to STEM.”
Oct 8, 2021 | Featured, Research
In a study published in Nature Microbiology, researchers at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai address unanswered questions about how fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT) can effectively restore a patient’s microbiome.
Ari Grinspan, MD
FMT involves transferring processed stool collected from a healthy donor into the intestinal tract of a patient in order to replace the existing microorganisms in the intestinal tract and treat Clostridioides difficile infection (CDI). FMT helps to restore the balance of “good” and “bad” bacteria in the colon, which can help patients fight off infections.
“This is big news for patients and providers. While FMT is effective for CDI, it is a crude treatment, fraught with challenges including access and safety concerns. We have identified a select group of bacteria in a real-life human study that can serve as an ideal starting point for a synthetic FMT product–without the ‘fecal’ component,” says Ari Grinspan, MD, Associate Professor of Medicine, Division of Gastroenterology, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, a co-author of the study.
Studies have shown how a healthy patient’s gut microbiota after transplantation resembles that of a healthy donor. However, these studies have failed to answer a very basic question: Which individual bacterial strains are actually transferred to the recipient’s gut microbiota and for how long?
Jeremiah Faith, PhD
“Knowing which bacterial strains are transferred to the recipient gut microbiota is critical to our understanding of why some patients respond to FMT and others do not,” says Jeremiah Faith, PhD, Associate Professor, Precision Immunology Institute and the Department of Genetics and Genomic Sciences, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, senior author of the study.
Dr. Faith and his team of researchers isolated and sequenced the whole genomes of 2,987 bacterial isolates representing 1,008 unique strains from 9 FMT healthy donors and 13 recurrent CDI FMT recipients, while also developing an algorithm to track sequenced bacterial strains and metagenome, thus allowing them to pinpoint strains that will be most effective in treatment.
They rigorously validated and benchmarked the algorithms and showed that most FMT donor strains (more than 70 percent) and a minority of recipient strains (less than 25 percent) are retained for at least five years after FMT in non- relapsing patients.
Several U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) advisories have recently reported severe adverse events from FMT, increasing safety concerns around undefined FMT, which uses the entire stool. Isolating and identifying the strains that are transferred from FMT donors to recipients could lead to a potentially safer alternative to FMT, according to the researchers.
The study received funding support from the Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation; the National Institutes of Health; and a SUCCESS philanthropic award funded by the Bacchetta Foundation.
Oct 7, 2021 | Featured, Research
Ian Maze, PhD
For decades, scientific dogma held that the chemicals dopamine and serotonin served as messengers within the central nervous system, allowing brain cells, or neurons, to communicate with each other. Known as neurotransmitters, dopamine and serotonin also contribute to drug addiction and depression.
But neuroscientist Ian Maze, PhD, had a nagging suspicion there was more to their story, and when he established his lab at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in 2014, he began to build tools that would enable him to explore the full range of their power.
Today, his research has upended the scientific dogma about dopamine and serotonin, showing that in addition to their role as messengers, the chemicals are able to change the fundamental biology and behavior of brain cells.
His significant discovery opens new avenues for research into other neurotransmitters in the human body, including histamine and norepinephrine, and new possibilities for treating a range of diseases. These include post-traumatic stress disorder, Parkinson’s disease, and even breast cancer and gastrointestinal disorders, which can be associated with a large buildup of serotonin in the cells.
In September, Dr. Maze, Associate Professor of Neuroscience, and Pharmacological Sciences, at Icahn Mount Sinai, was named a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator (HHMI), a highly selective and prestigious award that will provide his lab with millions of dollars in funding and support for years to come.
“This is a tremendous honor,” says Dr. Maze, who received his doctoral degree at Mount Sinai under the mentorship of Eric J. Nestler, MD, PhD, Dean for Academic and Scientific Affairs, Director of The Friedman Brain Institute, and the Nash Family Professor of Neuroscience. “I received this award after running my lab for only seven years, so I feel pretty humbled to be in this position and to be able to tackle these high-risk high-reward types of projects.”
Recently, Icahn Mount Sinai launched the Center for Neural Epigenome Engineering, which will be led by Dr. Maze. The Center will investigate the mechanisms responsible for neurodevelopmental and neuropsychiatric illnesses using chemical-biology and protein-engineering technologies and facilitate the development of more targeted neurotherapeutics.
“I think we need to put out the best data that we can and inspire people from all disciplines…I’m all about sharing our resources and tools to get people to help us move it forward. I want to see this grow and see what the implications are for improving human health.” — Ian Maze, PhD
Training new scientists to think independently and follow their “gut” instinct is important to him. So is collaborating with other labs, which will help answer the many questions raised by his latest research.
Dr. Maze says his persistent investigation into dopamine, serotonin, and other monoamine neurotransmitters happened serendipitously, following a conversation he had with a former colleague, who mentioned a paper on the subject published a decade earlier that Dr. Maze had not seen.
That is when the “light bulbs went off,” he recalls. “So then it was an obsession. The initial years in the lab, the pursuit was so—you can’t describe it, it was so exciting. That’s how science goes. You build upon things that people have done and you put together connections that maybe other people weren’t putting together and then you test it.”
He believes his areas of expertise, in molecular neuroscience and chromatin biochemistry, provided him with a unique perspective from which he was able to view these chemicals from the inside out, and he integrated the latest biochemical approaches and techniques to analyze them in a way that had not been done before.
His lab extracts proteins from brain cells in animal models and postmortem tissues and examines how they are chemically modified or changed. By now, the team has characterized thousands of modified proteins using mass spectrometry and other approaches, and they continue to search for new protein modifications and how they affect brain cells.
“When scientists identify a new type of chemical modification they often characterize it on one or a handful of proteins, but think about all the proteins out there that could be modified, and they all have different functions and different outcomes depending on their regulation,” says Dr. Maze.
One of his goals is to build out large-scale genetic modeling systems that would allow him to organize and categorize all of these chemical modifications on proteins, something he says HHMI would also like to see. “Our challenge is trying to figure out how we tackle this in a more comprehensive way.”
Another avenue of research will be exploring specific categories of drugs that may also function by directly or indirectly modifying proteins in our cells. In a 2020 study on cocaine dependence in Science, Dr. Maze and his team showed that by manipulating these types of marks in the brain’s reward circuitry in animal models they could reduce the tendency to relapse into addiction.
Dr. Maze says the new Center for Neural Epigenome Engineering and his lab will “continue to work in the brain and collaborate with other neuroscientists to build out different disease and developmental models.” His lab will continue to focus on substance use disorder, depression and post-traumatic stress disorders and improving current treatments, which are ineffective for many people. But he hopes specialists in other areas of the body will join in this search, as well.
“I think we need to put out the best data that we can and inspire people from all disciplines,” he says. “I’m all about sharing our resources and tools to get people to help us move it forward. I want to see this grow and see what the implications are for improving human health.”
Sep 21, 2021 | Featured, Psychiatry, Research
Premature birth is linked to an increased risk of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in both males and females, with those born earliest carrying the highest risk, according to a large and definitive new study in
Pediatrics from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. ASD, a disability associated with social, behavioral, and communication challenges, affects nearly one in 54 children in the United States.
The research found that children born between 22 and 27 weeks gestation had nearly four times the risk of developing ASD than children born full-term, between 39 and 41 weeks. Even babies born early-term—at 37 to 38 weeks—carried a 10 percent to 15 percent higher risk of ASD when compared to full-term births.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, most children are diagnosed with ASD after the age of four, and boys are more likely to be diagnosed than girls. But an important takeaway from the Mount Sinai study is the need for parents and pediatricians to carefully monitor all premature babies, says the study’s lead author, Casey Crump, MD, PhD, Vice Chair for Research in the Department of Family Medicine and Community Health, and Professor of Epidemiology, Department of Population Health Science and Policy, Icahn Mount Sinai.
Casey Crump, MD, PhD
“Both preterm and early-term births should now be recognized as independent risk factors for autism in both males and females,” say Dr. Crump. “Children born prematurely need early evaluation and long-term follow-up to facilitate early detection and treatment of autism. Hopefully, our findings will help raise awareness of that.”
Dr. Crump and researchers at Lund University in Sweden examined the population records of more than 4 million Swedish individuals across a 30-year period and found the prevalence of ASD was directly related to gestational age. While the risk of ASD in children born between 37 and 38 weeks gestation is relatively modest, he says, the high numbers of children born during that gestational window make it notable.
In reaching their conclusions, the researchers compared siblings within families and were able to control for genetic and environmental factors, which strengthened the link between prematurity and ASD. The researchers also paid attention to these patterns in premature females, a group that had not been studied as extensively as males.
According to Dr. Crump, the study is meant to raise awareness but not alarm parents of premature babies. “Most of these children do very well across their lifespans,” he says.
Yet, “Preterm birth can interrupt or delay the development of all organ systems, such as the cardiovascular system and kidneys, as well as the neurological system,” he adds. For example, the weight of the human brain increases by nearly one-third between 34 and 40 weeks gestation, with significant increases in the volume of white and grey matter. Additional research has shown that the preterm brain is exposed to an inflammatory environment, which could result in a cascade of neuronal injury and alterations that occur prior to birth.
“Parents of children born preterm should be extra careful that their children have close clinical follow-up with physicians who are aware of these issues and can refer them to specialists,” says Dr. Crump. “Earlier detection leads to earlier treatments, which can improve outcomes. Gestational age at birth should certainly be tracked in the medical records to facilitate identification of these people across their life course.”
