More than 300 employees and patients of the Mount Sinai Health System recently gathered in the Guggenheim Atrium to celebrate the 30,000th participant in the BioMe Biobank. The Biobank collects de-identified DNA and plasma used for a variety of research purposes from consenting patients.
Ketamine, a drug approved for use as a general anesthetic and sedative, also appears to provide significant relief to patients with major depressive disorder, and those with chronic post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), according to two separate studies conducted by researchers at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.
In a groundbreaking, multi-centered randomized trial published in The New England Journal of Medicine, researchers, co-led by Mount Sinai’s David H. Adams, MD, determined that a catheter-based heart procedure to replace an aortic valve was superior to surgery for patients who have symptomatic severe aortic stenosis with increased risks. The findings, based on a clinical trial involving 795 patients treated at 45 institutions across the nation, were simultaneously presented by Dr. Adams at the 63rd Annual Scientific Session of the American College of Cardiology on Saturday, March 29, and represent a major advance for heart patients who are at high risk for surgery.
Two newly identified proteins that appear to play a critical role in the development of aggressive triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) could also lead to potential new treatments, according to scientists at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, the University of Kentucky, MD Anderson Cancer Center, and several medical centers in China.
Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) describes a group of neurodevelopmental disorders with a wide range of severity and symptoms affecting 1 out of 68 children in the United States. While there is currently no medicine for this complex condition, discovering genetic causes of ASD will help accurate diagnosis and prediction of additional likely symptoms, thereby improving medical treatment. Genetic findings can also provide families with critical information about the clinical course of the disease and provide opportunities for family counseling. New genetic findings allow scientists to conduct more specific research into the mechanisms that cause ASD as well as the many subtypes and symptoms of the condition. Finally, genetic findings also allow for detailed study of the way these genes function, which can help scientists design new treatments and develop more tailored medical support in the form of personalized medicine.
In February, CBS This Morning had a segment on Mount Sinai’s novel use of fruit flies to screen for personalized cancer drugs. Ross Cagan, PhD, Associate Dean of the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, discussed how his laboratory replicates a patient’s tumor and implants it in a fruit fly. Then his team tests an arsenal of 840 drugs—all approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for other uses—to see if they shrink the tumor.