Andrew F. Stewart, MD

A rare benign tumor may hold the key to regenerating insulin-producing beta cells and lead to novel drugs for patients with diabetes, according to a study led by Andrew F. Stewart, MD, Director of the Diabetes, Obesity and Metabolism Institute and the Irene and Dr. Arthur M. Fishberg Professor of Medicine at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.

Dr. Stewart’s team conducted the largest genomic study of insulinomas—benign pancreatic tumors that secrete insulin—and uncovered multiple pathways to human beta cell proliferation, long seen as a holy grail in treating, and possibly curing, diabetes.

“We’ve sequenced 38 human insulinomas with 30,000 genes each, and now know all the genes that are mutated and misregulated,” says Dr. Stewart. “For the first time, we have a genomic recipe—an actual wiring diagram in molecular terms—that demonstrates how beta cells replicate.” The results of that research were reported in the journal Nature Communications in October 2017.

Dr. Stewart says that one of the reasons he joined Mount Sinai five years ago was that its strong Genomics and Bioinformatics programs offered him the potential to assess the insulinomas he had been collecting. “I wanted to do genome sequencing and RNA expression as part of comprehensive studies to figure out which genes were turned on and which weren’t in insulinomas,” he says.

Eric Schadt, PhD, Dean for Precision Medicine, and the Jean C. and James W. Crystal Professor of Genomics, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, assigned a team of bioinformatics specialists to work closely with Dr. Stewart, led by Carmen Argmann, PhD, Associate Professor of Genetics and Genomic Sciences, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. “We are now further expanding our sequencing to 100 insulinomas. We already have found many pathways that lend themselves to new drugs,” Dr. Stewart observes.

Dr. Stewart has repeatedly undercut the argument that human beta cells were impossible to reproduce. In the March 2015 issue of Nature Medicine, his team reported the discovery of the first drug that can trigger human beta cell regeneration: harmine. In that study, Dr. Stewart’s team robotically screened 100,000 chemical compounds in search of a drug to make beta cells grow. They identified 86 potential candidates, and eventually winnowed the field to harmine, which is derived from the flowering plant harmal, or ayahuasca.

Harmine, however, has psychoactive properties that act not only on beta cells but on the brain and other tissues throughout the body. That complication has touched off a search within the research community to find other small molecules that target only beta cells. “We’re making considerable progress in making the next-generation versions of harmine in combination with other drugs that will afford us much higher proliferation of human beta cells,” Dr. Stewart says. “With the insulinoma project, we have acquired a road map to even more effective beta cell regenerative drugs.”

Andrea E. Dunaif, MD

Andrea E. Dunaif, MD, a renowned physician-scientist in diabetes and women’s health, has joined the Mount Sinai Health System as Chief of the Hilda and J. Lester Gabrilove Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes and Bone Disease. In her role, Dr. Dunaif seeks to build on Mount Sinai’s strengths in research on diabetes, metabolism, and endocrine disorders.

Dr. Dunaif is a leader in research into polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), which affects about 7 percent of reproductive-age women. PCOS is an inherited disorder where the ovaries, and frequently the adrenal glands, make a slight increase in the male hormone testosterone, leading to irregular periods, excessive hair growth, and acne. Research led by Dr. Dunaif has shown that PCOS is associated with insulin resistance and is a leading risk factor for type 2 diabetes in young women. She has also shown that the male and female relatives of affected women are at increased risk for type 2 diabetes and reproductive problems. “I am transferring my research program here,” Dr. Dunaif says, “so Mount Sinai will become a major center for the genetics of PCOS.”

In a continuation of her work, funded by a $2.5 million National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant, Dr. Dunaif is mapping chromosomal regions that have a high likelihood of containing genes causing PCOS. The ultimate goal is to identify therapeutic targets and genetic markers that could be used to predict and prevent PCOS.

Dr. Dunaif, the Lillian and Henry M. Stratt on Professor of Molecular Medicine, began her career at The Mount Sinai Hospital in the early 1980s. She most recently served at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago as Chief of Endocrinology, Metabolism, and Molecular Medicine; Vice Chair for Research in the Department of Medicine; and Director of the Specialized Center of Research on Sex Differences, supported by the NIH.

She plans to take advantage of the “phenomenal expertise in genetics at Mount Sinai” by working closely with the Department of Genetics and Genomic Sciences and The Charles Bronfman Institute for Personalized Medicine at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. She also seeks to expand her Division’s strengths across the Health System, including the study of diabetes, metabolism, and population health at Mount Sinai St. Luke’s; the Thyroid Center at Mount Sinai Union Square; and the groundbreaking research on postmenopausal metabolism, artificial pancreas systems, and pancreatic beta cells at the Icahn School of Medicine.

“Returning to Mount Sinai is very much like coming home,” Dr. Dunaif says. “And it is exciting to see the extraordinary growth of the Icahn School of Medicine and the Health System. It was always excellent, but now it is one of the premier academic health centers in the country.”

Carl H. June, MD, gives the keynote address

A keynote address by Carl H. June, MD—whose research has led to a therapy that can keep a leukemia patient cancer-free for years after a single infusion—contributed to a sense of excitement and immediacy at the sixth annual SinaInnovations conference. Cancer was the theme of the event held on Tuesday, October 17, and Wednesday, October 18, in Stern Auditorium at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.

A few months before the conference, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved a groundbreaking therapy for acute lymphoblastic leukemia based on CAR-T research by Dr. June, Professor of Immunotherapy, and Director of the Center for Cellular Immunotherapies at the University of Pennsylvania. And a second CAR-T therapy, for large B-cell lymphoma, was approved on the second day of the conference. In these treatments, a patient’s own T cells are genetically engineered so they produce a protein called a chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) that allows them to recognize and attack cancer cells. The underlying concepts date to the early 1990s, Dr. June said, but the treatments can now be produced faster and at a larger scale, helping make this a time of revolution in cancer therapeutics.

When CAR-T therapy is combined with other precision medicine, “we are really changing the ability to actually cure metastatic cancer for the first time,” Dr. June said, although the complexity of solid tumors still presents a major challenge.

Dr. June was among many internationally known physicians and researchers featured at SinaInnovations in panels and presentations on immunology, viruses, genetics, genomics, and precision medicine. The conference was opened by Dennis S. Charney, MD, Anne and, Joel Ehrenkranz Dean, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, and President for Academic Affairs, Mount Sinai Health System, who said, “Cancer kills our patients, and we need to kill cancer. We need a road map to do that. I can assure you that Mount Sinai has made a significant commitment to be at the forefront of that mission.”

Scott L. Friedman, MD, leader of SinaInnovations, with a panel on disparities in cancer care and survivorship.

At the conference, Maura Gillison, MD, PhD, Professor of Medicine, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, also outlined her influential research, which was the first to delineate the role of human papillomavirus (HPV) as a cause of head and neck cancer in men and cervical cancer in women, resulting in a profound shift in preventive treatment—and a decrease in those cancers.

José Baselga, MD, PhD, Physician-in-Chief of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, delivered an address on novel therapeutics in cancer. Among other advances, Dr. Baselga said, genomic sequencing of tumors makes therapies available to patients more quickly and with more precision. “The FDA is telling us they are not going to require randomized trials for rare disorders in which you have clear clinical benefit with the targeted therapy,” he said. In such cases, Dr. Baselga said, “there is no need—and actually it could be unethical—to do randomized clinical trials.”

Ramon Parsons, MD, PhD, Ward-Coleman Chair in Cancer Research, and Director, The Tisch Cancer Institute, led a panel on personalized medicine that pointed the way forward on many fronts: using mathematical algorithms to model the effects of treatments, using noninvasive “liquid biopsies” to detect and monitor cancer, and creating shareable databases on tumors.

“We are privileged to live in an era of astounding progress in genomic diagnostics, as clinical research matches specific cancers to appropriate treatments,” Dr. Parsons said. A separate panel called for pragmatic, population-level approaches to fighting cancer, such as further decreasing the rate of smoking, and addressing life-threatening disparities in access to health care.

In closing remarks, the leader of SinaInnovations, Scott L. Friedman, MD, Dean for Therapeutic Discovery and Chief of the Division of Liver Diseases at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, compared the state of cancer research to a glass half-full. “There are enormous opportunities, but equally enormous challenges, in public health, in finding more effective therapies, and in the financial and regulatory domains,” Dr. Friedman said. “Yet, I think this era—even this year—will be viewed in retrospect as a major inflection point toward a new world of unique therapies that will change patients’ lives.”

Corporate sponsors for SinaInnovations included Accenture PLC; Cisco Systems; Epic; Gilead Sciences, Inc.; Hitachi Consulting; IBM; Jones Day; The Kinetix Group; Pfizer; the Louis and Rachel Rudin Foundation Inc.; and Sema4. Hackathon sponsors included Persistent Systems, Inc., and the Pershing Square Sohn Cancer Research Alliance.

A large and diverse group of individuals and teams from the Mount Sinai Health System were honored for their contributions to research, technology, medicine, and health care at the third annual Mount Sinai Innovation Awards ceremony, held on Monday, October 16, in conjunction with the SinaInnovations conference.

Yiannis Ioannou, PhD, Inventor of the Year, right, with Erik Lium, PhD, Senior Vice President, Mount Sinai Innovation Partners.

Yiannis Ioannou, PhD, Associate Professor, Genetics and Genomic Sciences, and Gene and Cell Medicine, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, received the Inventor of the Year Award for work in lysosomal storage diseases. Dr. Ioannou’s work led to the first treatment for Fabry disease, in collaboration with Robert Desnick, MD, PhD, Dean for Genetics and Genomic Medicine, and the discovery of small molecules that may serve as the basis for novel therapies for the treatment of numerous lysosomal storage diseases. His work as an inventor-collaborator with Mount Sinai Innovation Partners has culminated in the launch of a new company in partnership with institutional investors. Watch the video about the Inventor of the Year

Winners of the Faculty Idea Prize, Hala Harony-Nicolas, PhD, left, and Lior Zangi, PhD, right, with Lakshmi A. Devi, PhD, Dean for Academic Development and Enrichment.

Hala Harony-Nicolas, PhD, and Lior Zangi, PhD, received the Faculty Idea Prize for their novel RNA-based approach to efficiently deliver neuropeptides to the brain, using modified mRNA technology. Dr. Harony-Nicolas is Assistant Professor, Psychiatry, and a Seaver Fellow at the Seaver Autism Center at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, and Dr. Zangi is Assistant Professor, Medicine (Cardiology), and Genetics and Genomic Sciences.

Janice L. Gabrilove, MD, the James F. Holland, MD Professor of Medicine and Oncological Sciences, with some of the winners of the Dean’s Healthcare System Team Science Award.

The Dean’s Healthcare System Team Science Award, established to acknowledge the importance of interdisciplinary teams in translational research, went to 13 investigators at the Center for Personalized Cancer Therapeutics. The team built a personalized “fruit fly avatar” using transgenic technology to identify and optimize candidate drug combinations for individual patient-derived tumors in an effort to provide an individualized treatment plan that best aligns with the patient’s own disease biology.

The winners were Marshall Posner, MD; Celina Su-Ping Ang, MD; Erdem Bangi, PhD; Joshua Brody, MD; Ross Cagan, PhD; Michael Donovan, MD, PhD; Matthew Galsky, MD; Sara Kim, PharmD; Krzysztof Misiukiewicz, MD, MSCR; Eric Schadt, PhD; Isaiah Selkridge; Andrew Uzilov, PhD; and Kendra Yum, PharmD.

A group of 18 innovators, including collaborators from other institutions, received the 4D Technology Development Program Award for four projects that use new technology:

• Next-generation bandages for improved wound healing: Evren Azeloglu, PhD, and Smiti Bhattacharya, MSc, with collaborators Michael Bradley; Matthew De Santis; Roman Scicchitano; Addison Shableski; and Safakcan Tuncdemir, PhD
• Diagnostic urine biomarker for detecting diabetic nephropathy progression: Ilse Daehn, PhD; Steven Coca, DO; Girish Nadkarni, MD; and Liping Yu
• Advanced technology to improve the treatment and quality of life of atrial fibrillation patients: Ya-El Mandel-Portnoy, PhD, with collaborator Gregor Schwartz, PhD
• Internet-based patient activation intervention to improve referrals for cancer screening (PAIRS): Jamilia Sly, PhD; Brittney Henry; Lina Jandorf; Sarah Miller, PsyD; and Jason Rogers.

Eight individuals received Trainee Innovation Idea Awards, which highlight innovative research ideas from the Mount Sinai trainee communities that could potentially be translated into a marketable product. They are:

• MD and MD/PhD students Theodore Pak, Mark Finkelstein, Kathleen Li, and Suhavi Tucker: The CareTeam app for clinical protocols
• PhD student Rayees Rahman: Rapid identification of causative pathogens of infection
• Postdoctoral fellow Gaurav Verma, PhD: Noninvasive detection of metabolic abnormalities in brain tumors
• House staff physician Pavis Laengvejkal, MD, with collaborator Weeraporn Srisung, MD: Cloud-based health care platform.

The three winning teams at the Health Hackathon each won $2,500. The winning teams, from left: Streamline: An artificial intelligence tool for streamlining the process of developing clinical trial protocols, to get treatments into the clinic more quickly and inexpensively; OnTrack: An app that helps pediatric cancer patients keep up with social contacts and schoolwork during extended treatment, to facilitate a more seamless re-entry to school; Helping Stand: A portable device to help fatigued or frail patients get in and out of automobiles.

SinaInnovations hosted the second annual Health Hackathon, a two-day competition on Friday, October 13, and Saturday, October 14, that drew 90 participants, including students from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and other institutions, plus engineering and software professionals.

“The focus of this Hackathon is to bring together people from diverse scientific backgrounds, business, and even the humanities to develop incredibly creative and impactful solutions to problems in health,” Janice L. Gabrilove, MD, the James F. Holland, MD Professor of Medicine and Oncological Sciences, and Director, Clinical and Translational Research Education Program, Icahn School of Medicine, told the participants. “Having you here has enriched our experience.”

The event, formerly known as the MedMaker Challenge, was sponsored by ConduITS, the Institutes for Translational Sciences at the Icahn School of Medicine. In all, 14 teams worked over a 48-hour period on projects related to this year’s theme, cancer. A panel of judges chose three winning teams, which were each awarded a prize of $2,500. The teams, and a fourth wild-card team, will be invited to participate in the Innovation Showcase on February 15, 2018, where they will present their pitches to a panel of entrepreneurs.