An Aspiring Physician-Scientist Explains How an Award Will Support His Research and His Career

Updated on Oct 3, 2024 | Research

Ayman Mohammad

Ayman Mohammad is a scholarly-year medical student at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in between his third and fourth years of medical school pursuing a Master of Science in  Clinical Research.

Mr. Mohammad recently received an ASH Medical Student Physician-Scientist Award, which provides an opportunity for medical students to gain experience in hematology research under the mentorship of a member of the American Society of Hematology (ASH) and to learn more about the specialty. Awardees agree to spend more than 80 percent of their time during the immersive, yearlong project conducting laboratory, translational, or clinical hematology research. The award provides $42,000 of funding for a one-year period.

At Icahn Mount Sinai, he works in the lab of Bridget Marcellino, MD, PhD, Assistant Professor, Medicine (Hematology and Oncology), investigating the mechanisms behind the pathogenesis of myeloid malignancies. Outside the lab, he co-led Mount Sinai’s Health Policy Program and is now spearheading quality improvement and community-based participatory research efforts at the East Harlem Health Outreach Partnership, Mount Sinai’s student-run free clinic.

In this Q&A, he talks about how the award will support his research, why he chose Icahn Mount Sinai, and his plans for the future.

What research are you conducting related to this award?

My project focuses on understanding the drivers of leukemic transformation and how targeted therapy can halt the progression of hematologic malignancy. Specifically, I will be investigating two negative regulators of the TP53 tumor suppressor pathway, proteins MDM2 and PPM1D. Through targeted protein degradation, we can identify the impact of shutting off these negative regulators on the progression of myeloproliferative neoplasms to acute myeloid leukemia (AML). This project can show  the mechanisms underlying blood cancer pathogenesis and potentially offer a therapeutic solution through protein degrader treatment.

What does the ASH Award mean to you?

I was extremely honored and deeply humbled when I found out that I had received the ASH award. I admire ASH’s commitment to mentorship and supporting the next generation of physician-innovators. Both of my mentors, Dr. Marcellino and Dr. Ronald Hoffman have been recognized by ASH for their work in the hematologic space, so I am grateful to be able to share this opportunity with them and work together on an exciting, novel project this year.

How will this award help your research?

This award will allow me to take time to explore my own research interests during my scholarly year. As a leading organization in hematology-oncology patient care, research, advocacy, and education, ASH represents a future of possibility to me. Their financial support and mentorship offers me a springboard to pursue different career interests. I hope to immerse myself in the world of hematology-oncology and hone my skills as a researcher so that one day I can lead my own investigations with the goal of benefiting patients.

Why did you choose Icahn Mount Sinai and how has the medical school experience been so far?

Growing up in New York, I was always aware of Mount Sinai and its dedication to patients. I was thrilled at the opportunity to train in a community that I had been intimately familiar with growing up and to give back through medicine. Icahn Mount Sinai has been an incredible experience, and every day I am amazed by the work that our faculty, providers, and my fellow classmates are doing. I am excited to produce my own work and help advance our excellent research efforts in understanding heme-malignancy.

What do you hope your impact will be on patients and medical practice?

In my career, I hope to push the boundaries of how we treat heme-malignancies and make medical innovation a central part of my practice. I love translational research because of its potential to transform a scientific discovery in a lab into a disease-modifying therapy for a patient. However, having worked in the sickle cell space before, I understand that sometimes innovation does not reach all patients who need it. I believe that research does not simply end after a publication but rather continues through its impact on patients and practice. As a future physician-innovator, I want to ensure that all patients have equitable access to the fruits of clinical research.

Learn more about the Master of Science in Clinical Research program at Icahn Mount Sinai

Dermatology Resident Awarded a $1 Million Research Grant to Develop a Comprehensive Molecular Map of Hidradenitis Suppurativa

Updated on Sep 11, 2024 | Featured, Research

Kristina Navrazhina, MD, PhD

Kristina Navrazhina, MD, PhD, a first-year dermatology resident at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, has received a $1 million grant for research to provide a comprehensive molecular map of hidradenitis suppurativa (HS)—a skin condition that causes painful lumps deep in the skin—that may define specific subtypes and identify novel therapeutic targets.

Emma Guttman, MD, PhD, the Waldman Professor and Chair of Dermatology and Immunology at the Icahn Mount Sinai, is Co-Principal Investigator on this study.

“Hidradenitis suppurativa is a chronic, debilitating inflammatory skin disease with a highly unmet therapeutic need. There are currently no standardized HS biomarkers, which delays diagnosis and the monitoring of treatment response,” says Dr. Guttman.

Patients present with painful inflamed nodules and abscesses that progress to draining tunnels, commonly affecting places where two skin areas may touch or rub together, such as the armpits or the groin. The disease has an average onset of early adulthood and disproportionately affects underserved communities.

Despite the profound impact on the quality of life, there is still a high unmet need for better treatments. “This grant gives our team the opportunity to discover novel therapeutic options to help bridge this gap,” say Dr. Navrazhina. The grant is from Sanofi, the Paris-based pharmaceutical company.

Molecular mapping may identify early biomarkers of disease progression and capture an earlier window of opportunity for therapeutic intervention. Minimally invasive approaches of tape stripping to collect thin layers of skin and blood serum biomarker analysis will be used to study the molecular profile of HS. The data gathered from this research has the potential to connect clinical practice and therapeutic trials, thereby developing innovative and individualized treatment for HS.

Dr. Navrazhina adds, “We are inspired by our patients to conduct ground-breaking research that can ultimately be used to improve the quality of life for all HS patients.”

“This grant award highlights how the Kimberly and Eric J. Waldman Department of Dermatology at Mount Sinai is encouraging and fostering young physician/scientists to become leading scientific investigators of the future,” says Dr. Guttman.

Learn more about the Kimberly and Eric J. Waldman Department of Dermatology at Mount Sinai

AI Spotlight: Leveraging Generative AI to Predict ER Admissions

Updated on Nov 19, 2025 | Artificial Intelligence, Featured, Research

Eyal Klang, MD, Associate Professor of Medicine, and Director of the Generative AI Research Program within the Division of Data-Driven and Digital Medicine (D3M), at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.

Artificial intelligence (AI) can help radiologists analyze images or doctors make diagnoses with a high degree of accuracy even with traditional machine learning techniques, but they tend to require large amounts of training data to accomplish this.

Researchers at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai are exploring using the latest technique in generative AI—specifically large language models (LLMs)—to see if it can achieve accurate predictions with less training data. Generative AI is rooted in the concept of generating new content typically by understanding data distribution.

Using a specially prepared, secure version of GPT-4—a product from OpenAI, the company that runs the popular generative AI platform ChatGPT—the team applied the model to predict admissions in the Emergency Department, based on objective data collected from patients and triage notes.

“One of the advantages of LLMs over traditional methods is that you can use just a few examples to train the model for any use case,” says Eyal Klang, MD, Associate Professor of Medicine, and Director of the Generative AI Research Program within the Division of Data-Driven and Digital Medicine (D3M), at Icahn Mount Sinai. “You don’t need to retrain models again and again for each use case, which is very hard when that can take millions of data points.”

“Another advantage of LLMs is its ability to explain to the user how it arrived at its answer,” says Dr. Klang. The model’s ability to explain its reasoning provides confidence for a physician to use it in assisting in making medical decisions.

Here’s an animated explainer on how Dr. Klang and his team tested GPT-4 against traditional machine learning methods for predicting whether patients who go to the ER need to be admitted.

The study used patient visit data from seven hospitals within the Mount Sinai Health System. More than 864,000 emergency room visits were included in the data cohort. The ensemble model comprising traditional machine learning techniques achieved an AUC score of 0.878 in predicting admissions, with an accuracy of 82.9 percent. (An AUC score measures the ability to make correct positive and negative guesses, with an 0.5 score meaning the model performed no better than a random guess.)

The GPT-4 model was given the same task of predicting ER admissions, but under a few different conditions: “off the shelf” (not given any examples of patients, also known as “zero-shot”); given some probabilities of how machine learning models would perform; given 10 examples of patients with triage notes (“few-shot”); given 10 contextually similar cases (retrieval-augmented generation, or RAG); and various combinations of these conditions. In the setting with the most information provided (few-shot with RAG and machine learning probabilities), GPT-4 had an AUC score of 0.874, and an accuracy of 83.1 percent—results statistically similar to the ensemble model.

The findings were published in the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association on Tuesday, May 21.

In this Q&A, Dr. Klang discusses the team’s research.

What was the motivation for your study?

Our study was motivated by the need to test if generative AI, like the GPT-4 model, can improve prediction of admission—and thus clinical decision-making—in a high-volume setting like the Emergency Department. We compared it against older machine learning methods, as well as evaluated its performance in combination with older machine learning methods.

What are the implications?

It suggests that AI, specifically large language models, could soon be used to support doctors in emergency rooms by making quick, informed predictions about whether a patient should be admitted or not.

What are the limitations of the study?

The study relied on data from a single urban health system, which may not represent conditions in other medical settings. Additionally, our study also didn’t prospectively assess the impact of integrating this AI technology into the daily workflow of emergency departments, which could influence its practical effectiveness.

How might these findings be put to use?

These findings could be used to develop AI tools, such as those that integrate GPT-4, that support making accurate clinical decisions. This could promote a model of AI-assisted care that is data-driven and streamlined, using only very few examples to train the platform. It also sets the stage for further research into the integration of AI in health care, potentially leading to more sophisticated AI applications that are capable of reasoning and learning from limited data in real-time clinical settings.

What is your plan for following up on this study?

Our group is actively working on the practical application of LLMs in real-world settings. We are exploring the most effective ways to combine traditional machine learning with LLMs to address complex problems in these environments.

Learn more about how Mount Sinai researchers and clinicians are leveraging machine learning to improve patient lives

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The Importance of Pathogen Surveillance Networks

Updated on Jun 6, 2024 | Featured, Infectious Diseases, Research

High school students working in the lab of Florian Krammer, PhD, as part of the New York City Virus Hunters program. Image credit: Christine Marizzi, PhD, BioBus.

The H5N1 bird flu virus was detected for the first time in cows in March, and in May, a third person tested positive for bird flu, presumably from exposure to infected dairy cattle. With viral fragments detected in dairy, the Food and Drug Administration tested and announced that pasteurized milk was safe to drink, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has been working with city and state health authorities and institutions nationwide to monitor any new spread of the pathogen.

What goes into ensuring that we remain safe from pathogenic outbreaks? Are we adequately equipped to monitor, prevent, and treat another pandemic?

The co-directors of the Center for Vaccine Research and Pandemic Preparedness at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai—Florian Krammer, PhD, Mount Sinai Professor in Vaccinology, and Viviana Simon, MD, PhD, Professor of Microbiology; Pathology, Molecular and Cell-Based Medicine; and Medicine (Infectious Diseases)—tell us how the research community worked to shed light on bird flu in cows, pathogenic surveillance, and what Mount Sinai is doing in this field.

Left: Florian Krammer, PhD. Right: Viviana Simon, MD, PhD.

Were the bovine cases of bird flu expected and detected quickly?

Dr. Krammer: It took a while before H5N1 avian influenza was detected in cows for several reasons. Typically, cows do not get infected with influenza A virus. So nobody’s looking at cows, because why would you look if it has historically not been there? Compared to the poultry industry, where there is a good system in place for rapid detection of any outbreaks. Also, in cows, the H5N1 avian influenza is a slow disease. In avian species, when they get infected, they tend to die quickly. Other mammals, like bears, raccoons, or foxes that get infected with H5N1 via ingestion of infected birds, they often get neurological symptoms and die quickly too. It is different with the cows.

Are there adequate systems to prevent and protect against unexpected pathogenic outbreaks?

Dr. Krammer: From a scientific perspective, we have very good capabilities for detecting pathogens quickly. But preventing outbreaks is a complex task that takes more than just good science. Take the cases of avian influenza in dairy cattle, for example: When the outbreak occurred, there were no legal grounds for initial testing, or even for restricting movement of cows across state borders—there was not much the government could do. Academic networks like the Centers of Excellence for Influenza Research and Response, funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, produced the first reports of the recent cases, and are much more flexible and can respond quicker. These networks work very closely with government agencies to provide needed recommendations to handle unexpected outbreaks. One of these centers is located at Mount Sinai and we have also been very active with H5N1 surveillance and research.

Dr. Simon: Besides global and national surveillance networks, local efforts are important, too, especially for a large metropolitan city such as New York City. We have known for a long time that because New York is a very popular place for tourists to visit, that makes it a very likely entry point for any virus or pathogen. The city and state have various surveillance programs, and Mount Sinai also has a pathogen surveillance program that is more than 10 years old. This program is co-directed by Harm van Bakel, PhD; Emilia Sordillo, MD, PhD; and myself. We have been tracking nosocomial infections—picked up while in a hospital—and gaining information about circulating pathogens, including influenza virus strains, bacteria, and fungi. Our Pathogen Surveillance Program has resulted in Mount Sinai being the only site in the United States that is part of the Global Hospital Influenza Surveillance Network, which works to provide a unified protocol on covering hospitalized cases of severe influenza at a global level.

Are there any particular pathogens these networks are keeping an eye out for?

Dr. Simon: Some pathogens that the Mount Sinai Pathogen Surveillance Program is watching include bacteria like Staphylococcus aureus, Enterococci and Clostridioides difficile; viruses like influenza, RSV, SARS-CoV-2, and hantavirus; as well as fungi such as Candida auris.

What are some research questions these surveillance networks are trying to answer?

Dr. Simon: Some major questions include how influenza strains change in humans—their escape from the human immune system or their change of glycosylation (the process where sugar molecules attach to lipids, proteins, or other organic molecules); how to improve vaccines; and ensuring our diagnostics are able to pick up all the strains that can cause disease in humans.

Dr. Krammer: The tracking of the changes is not a problem. The World Health Organization does that on a regular basis, and we can do that too at Mount Sinai. A bigger challenge might be: can we catch up with seasonal viruses with our vaccines, or are we always a step behind? One way to tackle that is trying to design a vaccine that gives us broad protection, no matter if the viruses change, or if the strain is an H5N1 or an H1N1. Mount Sinai is very active in working on a vaccine that would work against any type of influenza—a universal influenza virus vaccine. As for diagnostics, there are so many subtypes of influenza viruses, but you never know which one presents a risk. We’re trying to find out what are the pathogenicity markers that make a strain dangerous for humans and make it transmit well. Or, what determines the risk of avian influenza jumping to humans? That’s why we have a program that looks at not only human influenza, but also avian influenza in animals in an urban space in New York City.

What does it take for such surveillance networks to succeed?

Dr. Krammer: You have to consider the fact that influenza viruses were not human viruses originally—they were bird viruses—and to tackle the vast topic of “One Health,” an approach that seeks to address the health of people, animals, plants, and the environment interconnectedly, you might need a wide range of expertise. This includes epidemiologists, immunologists, molecular virologists, structural biologists, doctors of veterinary medicine, and medical doctors. And that’s the nice thing about health systems like Mount Sinai, where we have a lot of those experts and they are able to come together to tackle this issue.

Beyond the science, collaboration is key. We have initiated the New York City Virus Hunters program, which is our science outreach surveillance program for H5N1. In this program, we work with local high school students to collect samples from birds in urban parks and greenspaces in the city, which are then screened for the presence of the virus. This is done in collaboration with Christine Marizzi, PhD, from the science education nonprofit BioBus and the wild bird rehabilitation center Wild Bird Fund. What’s important about getting high school students involved, especially those from backgrounds traditionally underrepresented in science, is getting them interested in science and steering them towards careers in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM), specifically in molecular biology, virology, and so on. It’s about building the next generation of biologists and about involving the community in pandemic preparedness.

Mount Sinai does not exist in a vacuum—we help by sharing our information with the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, as well as with the government agencies. On the COVID-19 side of things, we are actively participating in the National Institutes of Health’s SARS-CoV-2 Assessment of Viral Evolution (SAVE), which tracks emerging variants. Our information feeds into the scientific community, but it also feeds into government agencies, who use that information to make their health policy decisions.

Dr. Simon: To be able to do what Dr. Krammer outlined, we need to keep our infrastructures intact. And that is really hard because we need all the funding and support we can get from the school, hospital, and government. But we are excited for what we can learn to continue keeping everyone safe from outbreaks.

The New York City Virus Hunters program works with local high school students not only to track the presence and spread of H5N1 virus in animals, but also to foster an interest in science and a career in STEM fields among students.

Image credit: Christine Marizzi, PhD, BioBus.

Read more about the New York City Virus Hunters program

Team at Mount Sinai Fuster Heart Hospital Performs First U.S. Procedure With New Implant to Improve Circulation Below the Knee

Updated on May 17, 2024 | Featured, Research

Top, from left: Rheoneil Lascano, MSN, FNP, Vishal Kapur, MD, David Song, MD, Prakash Krishnan, MD, FACC, FSCAI, Raman Sharma, MD, and Moinuddin Syed, MBBS. Bottom, from left: Dr. Song, Samin K. Sharma, MD, Annapoorna S. Kini, MD, Dr. Kapur, Dr. Krishnan, and Raman Sharma, MD.

A team at the Mount Sinai Fuster Heart Hospital has successfully performed the first procedure in the United States using an innovative drug-eluting, below-the-knee resorbable scaffold.

The team was led by Prakash Krishnan, MD, FACC, FSCAI, Assistant Professor, Medicine (Cardiology and Radiology), and Director of Endovascular Interventions at The Mount Sinai Hospital’s Cardiac Catheterization Laboratory. The Food and Drug Administration approved the device in April.

“FDA approval of this long-awaited new technology of a dissolving bioabsorbable scaffold is a remarkable addition in the treatment of lower limb arterial blockages where balloon and regular stents results are suboptimal, and these scaffolds are poised to restore blood flow for a long time,” says Samin K. Sharma, MD, Director of Interventional Cardiology for the Mount Sinai Health System. “We are proud of Dr. Krishnan, who played a major role in getting this innovative device approved.”

More than 20 million people in the United States are living with peripheral artery disease (PAD) yet there have been limited treatment options. The new procedure is the first to treat people with chronic limb-threatening ischemia (CLTI) below-the-knee, a severe stage of PAD. The goal is to prevent amputation, heart attack, and stroke among these patients.

For individuals battling chronic limb-threatening ischemia, blocked vessels restrict blood flow to the lower extremities. While balloon angioplasty serves as the current standard of care, recurrent blockages often necessitate further intervention.

Unlike traditional metal stents, the drug-eluting below-the-knee resorbable scaffold is a temporary implant. Crafted from naturally dissolving material, this scaffold gradually disappears after opening a clogged artery, presenting a significant advancement in sustaining open arteries below the knee.

“A resounding applause to the team at Mount Sinai Fuster Heart Hospital for their relentless pursuit of excellence in advancing patient care,” said Dr. Krishnan. “Many times doctors tell patients amputation is the only option, so this new technology is a game changer.”

Learn more about the Mount Sinai Fuster Heart Hospital

Annual Symposium of the BioMedical Engineering and Imaging Institute Focuses on Precision Medicine and the Future of Digital Medicine

Updated on Apr 29, 2024 | Featured, Research

The 12th annual symposium of the BioMedical Engineering and Imaging Institute (BMEII) at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai focused on precision medicine and the future of digital health.

The event featured renowned academic and industry representatives from around the world who participated in panel discussions about the precision medicine imperative and the quest to extend the “health span”—defined as the number of years people live a heathy life free of disease—in a multidisciplinary manner with a focus on medical imaging and engineering.

The innovation station and poster session provided hands-on demonstrations of current research.

More than 325 people, including researchers, physicians, industry leaders, medical students, and high school students, attended the event at the New York Academy of Medicine. The event was held Wednesday and Thursday, March 20-21.

The symposium began with welcome remarks from BMEII’s Director Zahi A. Fayad, PhD, who emphasized the need to back up recent developments in screening, longevity, and pharmaceuticals with evidence and data. He shared this vision during the event, ensuring attendees walked away with a better and more holistic understanding of the current and future state of precision medicine.

A major highlight of the symposium was the panel discussion about the future of digital medicine. With five industry and academic leaders, this discussion addressed many of the challenges health care is facing as consumer health technologies grow rapidly and move into clinical areas. These challenges center on user compliance and data privacy.

“I think the biggest problem is also trying to get the stakeholders around the same table and developing some consensus as to how they can share, if not the proprietary information, but how can they kind of use all of that [data] towards the good of humankind,” said Jagmeet P. Singh, MD, ScM, DPhil, Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. He works closely with patients within the cardiology department who have received implantable cardiac devices and has first-hand experience with the long-term challenges that come with working with multiple manufacturers.

“So, now you have third-party vendors—in fact, over the course of the last year, there are almost 120 different remote monitoring companies that have come up—that are trying to standardize the data from these implantable devices that can be used uniformly by all health care givers,” he added.

Brendan Carr, MD, MA, MS

The symposium also included sessions for high school, undergraduate, and graduate students to build their interest in scientific research. A professional development panel, hosted by PhD candidates at Icahn Mount Sinai, allowed leaders in the field to share their personal experiences, challenges, and successes with the students. The innovation station and poster session provided hands-on demonstrations of current research in the medical imaging space by BMEII members and scientists from other institutes.

Health care is bound to change in dramatic ways in the future, and the symposium addressed the research and innovation that is shaping these changes.

Brendan Carr, MD, MA, MS, Chief Executive Officer of the Mount Sinai Health System, summarized the importance of the research BMEII is doing: “The clinical delivery system doesn’t exist without the pioneering research portfolio, and the pioneering research portfolio exists because it’s so unbelievably compelling to save lives and improve people’s health outcomes. That synergy is special—it’s a big piece of what this conference is about.”

Learn more about the Symposium
Learn more about Biomedical Engineering and Imaging Institute