The 56 members of the matriculating classes of PhD and MD/PhD students in the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai received white lab coats during a special ceremony held Monday, September 9, in Goldwurm Auditorium.

“It is with great pride and joy that I welcome you,” Marta Filizola, PhD, Dean of the Graduate School, and the Sharon and Frederick Klingenstein/Nathan Kase, MD Professor of Pharmacological Sciences, and Professor of Neuroscience, told the students. “This ceremony serves as a symbolic induction to your professional PhD training in the Biomedical Sciences and Neuroscience programs, as well as to the MD/PhD Medical Scientist Training Program.” The Graduate School, which began the tradition in 2018, is the only institution in New York City, and one of a few in the nation, to honor its matriculating PhD classes in this manner.

Also receiving recognition were 43 PhD and MD/PhD students who have officially joined a lab and confirmed their PhD candidature by passing their thesis proposal exams. They were presented with honorary plaques.

The PhD students recited an oath to guide them through their training, and beyond. In part, they pledged to uphold the highest levels of integrity, professionalism, scholarship, and honor, and to conduct their research and professional endeavors with honesty and objectivity.

Eric J. Nestler, MD, PhD, Dean for Academic and Scientific Affairs, Director of The Friedman Brain Institute, and Nash Family Professor of Neuroscience, who was the event’s master of ceremonies, gave this advice to the students. “The most critical dimension of your graduate student career will be finding the right laboratory in which to do your dissertation research—and the most critical aspect of that choice will be the lab’s principal investigator, who will be your mentor,” he said. “I would argue that the lab principal investigator is more important to your future than the content of the lab’s work or the experimental approaches the lab utilizes. If it works as it should, your lab mentor will be one of your more significant relationships of your professional lives.”

When keynote speaker Francesca Cole, PhD, stepped to the podium, she almost immediately acknowledged her own mentor, Robert S. Krauss, PhD, Professor of Cell, Developmental and Regenerative Biology, and Oncological Sciences, at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, who was in attendance. Dr. Cole received a PhD in Biomedical Sciences in 2003 at Mount Sinai, followed by postgraduate training at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, and today she is an Associate Professor of Epigenetics and Molecular Carcinogenesis at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center.

She outlined the struggles of a typical scientist. “We have to live with the knowledge that we could be wrong, that our approach may not work, that we may not be asking the right question. In short, doing research makes you feel stupid,” said Dr. Cole. “You must accept this. If you don’t feel that way, you aren’t working hard enough or pushing the boundaries of our knowledge enough.”

Dr. Cole also encouraged the students to select a mentor wisely and to support each other. “But this is my most important message to you,” she said. “It is abundantly clear that you all belong here. So, welcome to biomedical research, and let’s make beautiful science together.”

On Thursday, May 9, the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai celebrated its 50th Commencement with a ceremony at Lincoln Center’s David Geffen Hall. The School granted 157 degrees. Additionally, honorary degrees were granted to Commencement speakers, Scott Gottlieb, MD, and Curtis Martin. Dr. Gottlieb is the former Commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Mr. Martin, a National Football League Hall of Famer, has supported Mount Sinai’s efforts to develop a safe, non-addictive, non-opioid pain medication.

Joanna C. Jen, MD, PhD, and Bernard Cohen, MD

Joanna C. Jen, MD, PhD, a physician-scientist with a special interest in the genetic and physiological basis of neurological disorders affecting eye movement control, balance, and coordination, recently joined the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai as Chief of the Division of Neuro-otology and Neurogenetics in the Department of Neurology.

She was named the Dr. Morris B. Bender Professor of Neurology, and Professor of Neurosurgery, and Otolaryngology, and will build upon the groundbreaking work of her predecessors—the late Morris B. Bender, MD, a pioneer in the neurology of the ocular motor system and a former Chair of Neurology at Mount Sinai, and Bernard Cohen, MD. An internationally renowned scientist and clinician, Dr.  Cohen considerably advanced understanding of the functions of the vestibular system, helping to discover a mechanism in the brainstem that is an essential part of the neural basis for balance that aligns the body with gravity.

In one research project that began in the 1980s—which was recently documented in the Smithsonian Institution Online Virtual Archives Dr. Cohen was asked by NASA to test the neuro-optical response of primates when orbiting the Earth in microgravity. The Cosmos Primate Rotator Chair, which was built to specifications provided by Dr. Cohen and a Russian Academy of Medicine scientist, allowed the researchers to study eye movement responses in monkeys in an upright position and at various angles of tilt, before and after spaceflight. They demonstrated for the first time that exposure to microgravity had dramatically altered an essential reflex that is part of normal eye movements, both in humans and monkeys.

Dr. Cohen with the Cosmos Primate Rotator Chair.

The laboratory established by Dr. Cohen also developed the first effective treatment for mal de débarquement syndrome (MdDS), which has since treated more than 400 patients who have sensations of continuous rocking, swaying, and bobbing after cruises on the sea. Dr. Cohen, who served as the inaugural Dr. Morris B. Bender Professor of Neurology and continues his research as Professor Emeritus, recently provided generous funding for the first fellow in neuro-otology and for research on the pathophysiologic mechanisms underlying MdDS.

In her new role, Dr. Jen aims to create a comprehensive multidisciplinary clinical care and research program that spans the population health approach, from front-line evaluation and management of dizziness and imbalance, to precision medicine-based diagnosis and treatment for rare disorders of cerebellar maldevelopment and degeneration.