Shaped by Experiences During the COVID-19 Pandemic, Ahana Chowdhury Pursues a Master of Public Health (MPH) Degree, Aiming To Improve How Health Care Is Delivered in Communities

Jul 18, 2025 | School

Ahana Chowdhury, who earned an MPH degree in 2025 from Mount Sinai’s Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, started the program with a firm belief—that public health must extend beyond the clinic.

In the following Q&A, Ms. Chowdhury discusses what she learned and how her MPH can help advance her career.

What is your academic / career background?

I earned my Bachelor of Science in Biology, with minors in Chemistry and Business, from St. John’s University, graduating summa cum laude and being inducted into several academic honor societies. My background includes extensive patient care experience from years of volunteering and working in private clinical offices. Currently, I work part-time as a Cardiology Clinical Assistant and serve as Co-Director of the Programming Team for TCY Women, a nonprofit dedicated to advancing health equity for women.

What first attracted you to this field?

Growing up in New York City, I saw how health care often failed communities like mine. Living in boroughs such as Brooklyn, Queens, and the Bronx, I witnessed firsthand how a person’s circumstances could determine their well-being. However, it wasn’t until the COVID-19 pandemic that my understanding of health, both personal and systemic, was reshaped.

During the peak of the pandemic, my mother faced a critical health scare and was placed on a ventilator. Navigating that crisis while isolated from her care team underscored the deep disconnect between patients, families, and the medical system. This combination of personal crisis and population-level devastation cemented my drive to understand how public health works.

Through my MPH at Mount Sinai, I was able to immerse myself in patient-centered roles: sitting with isolated patients as a Chemo Companion, supporting individuals through abortion care as a Doula Project volunteer, and managing referrals at the student-run, physician supervised EHHOP [East Harlem Health Outreach Partnership] Clinic. These experiences deepened my belief that public health must extend beyond the clinic and be embedded in our systems and communities. I took on leadership roles with the Student Council DEIA Committee, The Doula Project, Women in Science at Mount Sinai, and as a Student Ambassador. I also contributed to a maternal health quality initiative, developed a women’s cardiovascular health literacy program for my capstone, and revised emergency preparedness materials for dialysis patients as a North HELP Coalition intern.

Who were your mentors at Mount Sinai?

I’ve had the privilege of being mentored by several outstanding faculty members. Dr. Elizabeth Garland, [Elizabeth J. Garland, MD, MS] my track advisor, offered support and thoughtful insight throughout the MPH program. Dr. Nils Hennig’s [Nils Hennig, MD, PhD] global health course helped ground my work in equity and ethics, while Dr. Maya Korin [Maya Rom Korin, PhD] and Dr. Lauren Zajac [Lauren M. Zajac, MD, PhD] shaped my understanding of community health and student-centered teaching.

What are some of your research highlights?

My most impactful research experience was as a Quality Analyst for the Student High-Value Care Initiative at Mount Sinai Morningside. Working on a maternal health quality improvement project, I helped address alarmingly high postpartum readmission rates for patients with preeclampsia, particularly in publicly insured populations. Our team aimed to reduce these readmissions from 22.7 percent to 8.1 percent by implementing three targeted interventions: (1) a patient-facing educational video from the Preeclampsia Foundation, (2) a redesigned blood pressure tracker to promote effective home monitoring, and (3) an improved telehealth follow-up workflow. We also analyzed the impact of social determinants on postpartum care utilization. This work was accepted for presentation at the Association of Clinicians for the Underserved Conference, where it won the ACOG [American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists] District II Medical Student Poster Contest.

I also served as a Research Assistant for a retrospective cohort study on the link between first-trimester pre-diabetic hemoglobin A1c levels and gestational diabetes risk. I conducted detailed chart reviews for more than 250 high-risk obstetric patients using EPIC and ECW, contributed to statistical analysis, and co-authored a manuscript currently in preparation for submission. These experiences deepened my passion for maternal health equity and translational research that improves outcomes for communities.

What are the strong points of the program?

Mount Sinai offered me an opportunity to explore the field of public health from multiple angles. One of the greatest strengths of the program was its ability to connect me with meaningful, hands-on experiences across departments and populations. Being part of a world-renowned health system in New York City gave me direct access to diverse patient populations and real-time public health challenges. The faculty were also a major highlight as their support helped me grow not just as a student, but as a practitioner. The program’s strong research infrastructure and academic resources were also key. I gained access to mentorship and institutional support that allowed my work to be presented at national conferences and prepared for publication.

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What Did Alberto M. Prieto Barreiro Gain in Mount Sinai’s Master of Health Administration (MHA) Program? ‘A Broader Understanding of How Different Sectors of Health Care—Policy, Finance, Operations—Interconnect To Impact Patient Outcomes’

Jul 18, 2025 | School

In June 2025, Mr. Prieto Barreiro earned an MHA from Mount Sinai’s Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences. The program’s focus on innovation, equity, and operational excellence, he says, aligned perfectly with what he was seeking. In the following Q&A, he explains how the insights he learned will shape his career.

What is your academic background?

I earned a Bachelor of Science in Neuroscience from Northeastern University, with a minor in Business Administration. This combination allowed me to develop a strong foundation in scientific thinking and research, while also gaining basic business and organizational skills that prepared me well for leadership-focused graduate study.

How did you become interested in Health Administration?

My interest developed as I was working as a medical assistant and I began to see firsthand how systems could affect patient outcomes—that issues such as affordability, supply shortages, and inefficient policies could create barriers for patients. Especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, I witnessed hospitals struggle with basic resources—beds, supplies, electricity—which further exposed gaps in leadership and coordination. These experiences made it clear to me that improving care isn’t just about treatment—it’s about building systems that are equitable, efficient, and sustainable. That realization inspired me to pursue a Master of Health Administration and help drive change from within the system.

Why Mount Sinai—what are the particular strengths of the program?

Mount Sinai stood out to me because it bridges world-class clinical care with forward-thinking leadership in health care delivery. The MHA program’s focus on innovation, equity, and operational excellence aligned perfectly with what I was seeking—not just to learn the fundamentals of health administration, but to be challenged to think critically about real-world problems. The faculty’s deep industry experience, the program’s integration with a top-tier academic medical center, and the strong emphasis on analytics, leadership, and strategic planning made it the ideal environment for me to grow. I also appreciated how the coursework constantly encouraged us to connect theory with practice and apply what we learned to current health care challenges.

How did you excel?

Throughout the program, I made it a priority to bridge academic concepts with real-world practice. I currently work full-time at Mount Sinai as a Biospecimen Coordinator, where I oversee the logistics of research supply distribution across clinical trial sites. It’s a role that combines operational coordination, vendor management, and compliance—giving me valuable insight into the behind-the-scenes systems that support research and patient care. I was able to directly apply lessons from class to the operational challenges I encountered in research logistics. For my capstone, I conducted a detailed analysis of biospecimen supply chain inefficiencies and proposed a technology-enabled coordination platform to improve transparency and reduce delays across research sites, suppliers, and purchasing departments. The project was grounded in real institutional needs and developed through cross-departmental feedback.

One of the most influential mentors in my experience was Christopher T. Spina, MS, Senior Vice President of the Mount Sinai Health System, who was a faculty lecturer. He taught both Introduction to the U.S. Healthcare System, and Health System Operations and Program Management. He brought deep knowledge and humility to the classroom, making each session feel like a thoughtful conversation. His ability to weave personal experience with practical tools—such as Lean and Six Sigma—made the content not only engaging but directly applicable. It was my first introduction to process improvement methodology, and it sparked a strong interest in operational strategy and systems-level thinking that I carried through the rest of the program.

How will the MHA help your career advancement?

I’ve gained a broader understanding of how different sectors of health care—policy, finance, operations—interconnect to impact outcomes. I now approach my work with a more strategic mindset, always looking for ways to improve processes and align stakeholders. I truly enjoy the work I’m doing now, however I am also excited about future opportunities in health care operations, policy, or finance where I can make a meaningful impact on system-level performance and equity. The MHA has helped prepare me to grow into those next steps, wherever they may lead.

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Why a Master’s Degree? New Mount Sinai Graduates Share Their Experiences and How They excelled

Jul 18, 2025 | Featured, School

Six master’s graduates from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai’s Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences discuss what they accomplished and how they are using their degrees to explore new paths in science, health care, and medicine.

After Sharpening His Engineering Skills in Industry, Karan Lingineni Gets a Master of Science in Clinical Research (MSCR), Building on a Passion for Research-Driven Approaches to Clinical Care

“As someone with a nontraditional background, I was looking for a program that would challenge me academically while embracing my interdisciplinary identity. Mount Sinai stands out not just for its leadership in AI and translational medicine, but for its breadth across health policy, entrepreneurship, and bioethics.”

Read the Q&A 

Driven by a Passion for Immunology, Gvantsa Pantsulaia Deeply Advances Her Understanding of the Field With a Master of Science in Biomedical Science (MSBS) Degree

“Mount Sinai fosters a culture of academic rigor, innovation, and mentorship. It’s a place where translational science thrives and where students are encouraged to think across disciplines.”

Read the Q&A 

Krystine Ferreira Recounts Unforgettable Experiences and Gaining a Vast New Skill Set on the Road to Earning a Master of Science in Epidemiology at Mount Sinai

 “I chose Mount Sinai because of the unique experience of being able to attend school on a medical campus where research and patient care thrive on a day-to-day basis. I knew the campus would have so much to offer and a new opportunity around every corner.”

Read the Q&A 

Unparalleled Research Opportunities, Strong Mentorship—and His Own Curiosity: Harsev Singh Reveals How He Excelled in Mount Sinai’s Master of Science in Biomedical Science Program

 “The way that Mount Sinai integrates research, academics, community, and service is, in my eyes, what makes this program exceptional.”

Read the Q&A 

Shaped by Experiences During the COVID-19 Pandemic, Ahana Chowdhury Pursues a Master of Public Health (MPH) Degree, Aiming To Improve How Health Care Is Delivered in Communities

“Mount Sinai offered me an opportunity to explore the field of public health from multiple angles. One of the greatest strengths of the program was its ability to connect me with meaningful, hands-on experiences across departments and populations.”

Read the Q&A 

What Did Alberto M. Prieto Barreiro Gain in Mount Sinai’s Master of Health Administration (MHA) Program? ‘A Broader Understanding of How Different Sectors of Health Care—Policy, Finance, Operations—Interconnect To Impact Patient Outcomes’

“The faculty’s deep industry experience, the program’s integration with a top-tier academic medical center, and the strong emphasis on analytics, leadership, and strategic planning made it the ideal environment for me to grow.”

Read the Q&A 

Read more about the Mount Sinai Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences

‘You Represent the Very Best’: Celebrating Mount Sinai’s 2025 Graduating Master’s Students

Updated on Jul 23, 2025 | Featured, School

There were many achievements to celebrate at Mount Sinai’s Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences 2025 Master’s Commencement Ceremony in Stern Auditorium, a lively event of cheers and tears, applause and hugs, that graduated a class of 178 students committed to advancing science, health care, and medicine.

“One of our graduates led groundbreaking research on anti-tumor T cell immunity and published six papers in academic journals, including two as first author,” said Marta Filizola, PhD, who leads the Graduate School as Dean and is the Sharon and Frederick Klingenstein/Nathan Kase, MD Professor of Pharmacological Sciences, and Professor of Neuroscience, and Artificial Intelligence and Human Health.

“Another graduate presented innovative research at national conferences on the role of motivation in major depressive disorder. And yet another conducted award-winning studies in skeletal muscle regeneration,” Dr. Filizola said.

“The inventive work of this year’s graduates also includes an artificial intelligence-based craving management tool for cocaine use disorder, and a technology platform for managing symptoms of polycystic ovary syndrome,” she continued, listing other achievements. “You represent the very best of what Mount Sinai aspires to cultivate in its students.”

The graduates earned degrees across nine programs: Master of Science in Biomedical Science; Master of Science in Biostatistics; Master of Health Administration; Master of Science in Health Care Delivery Leadership; Master of Science in Biomedical Data Science and AI; Master of Science in Clinical Research; Master of Science in Genetic Counseling; Master of Science in Epidemiology; and Master of Public Health.

From left: Brendan G. Carr, MD, MA, MS; David Sandman, PhD; Marta Filizola, PhD; and Eric J. Nestler, MD, PhD.

Brendan G. Carr, MD, MA, MS, Chief Executive Officer and Professor and Kenneth L. Davis, MD, Distinguished Chair of the Mount Sinai Health System, greeted the students and their families, faculty, and guests.

“I want to make sure that your family, friends, and loved ones know how important you are to this wonderful ecosystem that is Mount Sinai because our relationships with each other—our connectivity—is a superpower,” he said. “The symbiotic connection between our educational portfolio, our research, and our clinical care is what allows us to transform health care delivery and save lives.”

Dr. Carr continued: “Every part of our whole learns from the others, and we will continue to iterate and to evolve over time. We are a learning health system—ever curious and always pushing the boundaries. That’s what has driven Mount Sinai for over a century: the never-ending search for a better answer, one that unlocks a previously impossible challenge. Academics and clinicians who work together to find new ways to help people live longer, fuller, healthier lives…Thank you for being a critical part of this ecosystem.”

Master’s program graduates celebrate their achievements at the 2025 Commencement Ceremony.

Eric J. Nestler, MD, PhD, Interim Dean and Nash Family Professor of Neuroscience at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, and Executive Vice President and Chief Scientific Officer of the Mount Sinai Health System, applauded the graduates for their academic achievements and career ambitions. “Your work will be especially meaningful because we are living in a time of unprecedented challenges to science and medicine,” he said.

Dr. Nestler added: “The United States has long been, by far, the world’s leading funder of biomedical research. But suddenly, that research is under assault. New federal research grants this year have been only about half of what we would normally expect. This is especially disappointing because today’s research technologies are more powerful than ever and have the potential—with continued robust funding—to dramatically improve human health over the next decade.

“Biomedical research—funded by the National Institutes of Health [NIH]—has transformed health care, and led to remarkable improvements in life, and life expectancy, for tens of millions of Americans. Consider the treatment of heart disease and stroke. We witnessed a 56 percent decrease in age-adjusted deaths due to heart disease and a 70 percent reduction in deaths due to stroke over the course of my lifetime. This extraordinary improvement in health is directly related to NIH-funded research.”

“Despite these major challenges, I want you to know I am most confident this will be a momentary detour on the path to greater knowledge and better medicine. For the sake of humanity, science must prevail—and it will. Biomedical knowledge will grow. Our ability to treat and prevent disease—and care for patients—will continue to improve.”

Master’s program graduates celebrate their achievements at the 2025 Commencement Ceremony.

David Sandman, PhD, President and Chief Executive Officer of the New York Health Foundation, gave the Commencement address and received an honorary Doctor of Science degree for his lifelong visionary commitment to transforming the health and well-being of New Yorkers and marginalized people in New York and around the globe.

Dr. Sandman reflected on past health crises—including AIDS and the COVID-19 pandemic—and discussed the inequities in health care that remain entrenched in communities today.

“Right now, we are in upper Manhattan, but we can ride just a few subway stops in either direction, and it’s as if you are on different planets, with big differences in health status and life expectancy,” he said. “We have some the best academic medical centers in the world, including Mount Sinai. People come from all over the globe to get care here, but it’s also true that you can live right in the shadow of one of these miraculous places and be almost completely shut out of the health care system.”

Yet, he told the graduates, “I have faith that, together, we will keep fighting for what is right, no matter how strong the current headwinds might be.”

Then, he relayed what he called his “common-sense advice,” telling graduates: “First, dream big. Aim high, but keep your feet on the ground. Do things that are both ambitious and achievable. Second, be fearless, but not reckless—there is a big difference. Third, remember it’s all about people in the end.”

“These are hard times for public health,” he said. “We really need you. We need your brains. We need your creativity. We need your passion, and your compassion. I wish you all great success.”

Student speaker Pamela Ming Ern Toh

Student speaker Pamela Ming Ern Toh, who earned a Master of Science in Biomedical Science, galvanized her classmates.

“You, my friends, are the ones who did the work,” she said. “You are the ones who took the steps, who overcame the challenges. You pursued, and persisted, and, my friends, you prevailed. Look at all the things you know now that you didn’t know before, all the things you can do now that you couldn’t do before.

“Let every problem you have solved be a mark of your creativity. Let every challenge overcome [be] a testament to your resilience. Let every failure [be] a mark of hope and bravery, because you wanted something and took a risk, and learned a lesson.

“Despite the forces against science at the moment, and the injustices we are witnessing every day, I hope we can continue to be moved toward action over apathy, to be guided more by inspiration than fear, to continue showing up for the communities we serve, and to stick around to lift others up, the way we have been lifted up.

“Your futures are bright because of the light inside yourselves,” she said. “Nobody gave you your work ethic; nobody gave you your tenacity. Those traits are yours and they are precious. So when uncertainty makes it hard to know what steps to take, as inventor Simone Giertz said: ‘Remember, you are good at trying hard, and you are good at trying different. And between those two things, there will always be a way forward.’”

Click below for a celebratory slideshow of graduates.

Meet six graduates from Mount Sinai’s master’s programs and learn more about their experiences

Mount Sinai Ranked a Global Leader in Health Care Research

Updated on Jul 2, 2025 | Featured, Research, School

Thomas Marron, MD, PhD, Professor of Immunology and Immunotherapy at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai (left), and Miriam Merad, MD, PhD, Mount Sinai Professor in Cancer Immunology (right), at an immunology lab with researchers.

Each year, the Nature Index—a database produced by academic publisher Springer Nature that tracks research output—puts out a ranking list of leading institutions, organizations, and corporations with publications in prestigious journals.

In the Nature Index 2025 Research Leaders list released in June, the Mount Sinai Health System earned top marks: among health care institutions in the United States and North America, it was No. 5 for its research output. When compared against health care institutions around the world, Mount Sinai ranked sixth.

“These rankings are a reflection of the spectacular success that we have had in building innovative research programs at Mount Sinai,” said Eric J. Nestler, MD, PhD, Chief Scientific Officer of the Mount Sinai Health System and Interim Dean of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. In recent years, the Health System and the Icahn School have launched several new departments, institutes, centers, and programs in key areas of biomedicine and health care delivery, he noted.

The ranking is based on a score that takes into account the number of published papers in a defined list of prestigious journals, as well as contributing authors’ share of the papers. Mount Sinai was the only health care institution among the top 10 to have improved its adjusted share score in this year’s ranking from the previous year.

Who came in top? Click to see the full rankings.

Attaining that ranking is no small feat, considering Mount Sinai researchers focus only on a narrow scope of topics within health and life sciences, and do not produce research in other areas, including engineering, energy sciences, and astronomy.

As U.S. research institutions enter a period of funding uncertainty, staying a leader will take boldness and creativity, and Mount Sinai’s ability to respond with unusual nimbleness to opportunities as they arise will certainly help, said Dr. Nestler. “We have formulated a new strategic plan for research that will guide our continued growth, development, and leadership over the next 5 to 10 years,” he said.

Curious about where Mount Sinai shone in research? Take a look at the tables below, which showcase the journals Mount Sinai researchers had authored most papers in, as well as leading research topics.

Top five journals Mount Sinai published in during 2024
Leading research topics for Mount Sinai in 2024
Number Publication name Article count
1 Nature Communications 96
2 Nature 37
3 Journal of the American College of Cardiology 37
4 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 30
5 Nature Medicine 21
Number Research topic Article count
1 Clinical sciences 165
2 Oncology and carcinogenesis 120
3 Cardiovascular medicine and hematology 85
4 Neurosciences 41
5 Nutrition and dietetics 37

Stories Behind the Science: Dennis S. Charney, MD, and Psychiatry

Updated on Jun 25, 2025 | Featured, Psychiatry, Research, School

Stories Behind the Science: Dennis S. Charney, MD, and Psychiatry

Dennis S. Charney, MD, Anne and Joel Ehrenkranz Dean of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, created a legacy by serving as Dean for 18 years—one of the longest tenures of any medical school dean in the United States. His research career has been just as illustrious over the decades.

Rooted in psychiatry, pharmacology, and neurobiology, Dr. Charney’s research has resulted in treatment breakthroughs for depression, enhanced medical and scientific understanding, and led to two U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved therapies. He has published more than 800 articles, which have been cited more than 198,000 times, according to Google Scholar, and was elected to the prestigious National Academy of Medicine in 2000.

To read more about Dr. Charney’s career timeline, click here

One of his biggest research milestones was discovering that ketamine can be used as a fast-acting antidepressant, offering a useful alternative for patients who do not respond well to conventional therapies. However, pursuing that discovery was not easy amid societal stigma at the time.

“We were looked at like we were pursuing a PCP study or something,” said Dr. Charney, referring to the recreational street drug. “But we knew we had something big on our hands. We were on the verge of discovering something that could change the lives of patients, and we were very motivated. We weren’t scared, and we went about doing it the right way.”

In addition to discovering the antidepressive effects of ketamine, Dr. Charney is known for his work on the science of resilience, and for his role in the first FDA-approved digital therapeutic for depression.

Read more below about the decades of Dr. Charney’s research efforts, and what it was like being at the frontier.

The Beginnings:
A Focus on Bringing
Bench to Bedside

A young Dr. Charney (right) with mentor and collaborator George Heninger, MD (left), photo taken in 1996.

In the early 1980s, working at the Yale School of Medicine in conjunction with the Connecticut Mental Health Center, Dr. Charney was focused on understanding the pathophysiology of serious forms of depression, along with panic and anxiety disorders and obsessive-compulsive disorder.

“We wanted to develop better treatments for these conditions,” said Dr. Charney.

At the time, the neurotransmitters serotonin and norepinephrine were known to be involved in some psychiatric conditions, and Dr. Charney and his team members were developing methods of examining those relationships closely.

“It’s fair to say we developed, at that time, more sophisticated ways of studying those neurotransmitters,” he said, adding, “although they’re probably not considered sophisticated today.”

Those efforts led to the study of yohimbine, an alkaloid of the bark of the yohimbe tree, which revealed that excessive norepinephrine function was involved in panic disorder and PTSD (Arch Gen Psychiatry, 1984, now JAMA Psychiatry).

“That study was a great example of a combination of going from the lab to studying patients,” he said.

While a number of serotonin and norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors were emerging at the time, Dr. Charney’s findings were showing that targeting these neurotransmitters alone were insufficient to move the needle on treating depression.

“However, I felt that just looking at serotonin and norepinephrine couldn’t tell us the whole story about depression,” said Dr. Charney.

Finding Alternatives: Ketamine and the Glutamate System

Starting in the late 1980s, the treatment of major depression moved toward using selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) and serotonin-norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors (SNRIs). However, there was still a notable proportion of patients for whom these drugs were not effective enough.

“In patients who were not doing better, we tried to augment the serotonin system,” said Dr. Charney. “It didn’t work.”

“With all the studies we’ve been doing in depression, we thought monoamines told only part of the story in depression,” he noted, referring to the class of neurotransmitters that includes dopamine, serotonin, and norepinephrine. “So we thought maybe there is another system that was, in part, regulated by the monoamines, but would be more fundamentally involved in depression.”

In the early 1990s, Dr. Charney and his collaborator at Yale, John H. Krystal, MD, began looking for a pathway affected by monoamine neurotransmitters, and through a logical progression of studies, focused on the glutamate system and, soon, on ketamine—an anesthetic with known effects on the glutamate system. This work yielded some of Dr. Charney’s top-cited papers (Arch Gen Psych, 1994).

In the mid-1990s, Drs. Charney and Krystal did a series of studies on ketamine, first on healthy volunteers and then a small trial on seven patients with major depressive disorder (MDD). The results were shocking.

“The patients got better in a few hours,” recalled Dr. Charney. “I was like, ‘Are you kidding me?’ As an investigator watching it, it was like a miracle.”

Dennis S. Charney, MD (right) with John H. Krystal, MD (left), being awarded the Colvin Prize at the Brain and Behavior Research Foundation Gala, November 2019.

Drs. Charney and Krystal published their findings (Biological Psychiatry, 2000), but faced skepticism from both the scientific and general communities. The study was dismissed as not being replicable, and additionally for the fact that the researchers were working with a compound that was stigmatized for its recreational use.

When Dr. Charney went to the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) in 2000, he sought to repeat history. “Nobody believed it, nobody was trying to replicate it, so we’re going to have to do it ourselves at NIMH,” he said. “In the second study, we replicated it dead on.”

At the end of his stint at NIMH in 2004, Dr. Charney brought his findings with him to the Mount Sinai School of Medicine (now the Icahn School of Medicine), where he began his career as Dean of Research.

Dr. Charney is a named co-inventor on patents filed by Mount Sinai relating to the use of ketamine for the treatment of treatment-resistant depression and suicidal ideation. Mount Sinai licensed those patents to Janssen Pharmaceuticals, Inc. for the development of SPRAVATO (esketamine) by Janssen, which received FDA approval in 2019. Its approval makes it the first antidepressant of its kind to target N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptors—introducing the first new class of antidepressant drugs since the 1950s.

A Prescription for Resilience

In the 1990s, Dr. Charney turned his focus to studying trauma and PTSD, in collaboration with Steven M. Southwick, MD. That journey led to some of Dr. Charney’s most impactful work on understanding resilience.

“My buddy, Steve Southwick, was really involved in that work,” said Dr. Charney of his colleague, who passed away in 2022. “He’s on a lot of my papers, and he became my closest friend.” The ties between the two researchers dated back to before the 1980s.

Drs. Charney and Southwick tackled understanding PTSD from all angles—psychological, biological, social, pharmacological. Then, they had an idea to take their findings a step further to help patients.

“Back then, we thought, ‘If we studied people who were resilient—people who had been traumatized but didn’t develop PTSD—perhaps we could learn something from it, and apply those lessons to help patients with PTSD,” said Dr. Charney. “That’s how I ended up studying resilience for over 30 years.”

Dr. Charney’s paper on resilience (Am. J. Psychiatry, 2004) became one of his most cited works after his publications on ketamine in depression. He and Dr. Southwick then published a book called “Resilience: The Science of Mastering Life’s Greatest Challenges” (Cambridge University Press, 2012).

The book, now in its third edition, is rooted in the hundreds of interviews Drs. Charney and Southwick did with people who faced challenges in their lives—including prisoners of war and survivors of sexual and physical abuse. It includes a “prescription” for being resilient—10 steps that people can take to overcome life challenges.

From left to right, Dennis S. Charney, MD; Steven M. Southwick, MD; and John H. Krystal, MD.

“Not just for others—our research on resilience was also a personal journey,” said Dr. Charney. In 2016, Dr. Charney survived being shot, and he credits the lessons on resilience for overcoming that ordeal.

Those resilient factors also helped Dr. Charney navigate the stresses of the COVID-19 pandemic, and he established the Center for Stress, Resilience and Personal Growth in 2020 to extend that support to Mount Sinai staff.

Through Boldness,
a New Therapy Emerges

 

In 2024, the FDA approved a new class of treatments: digital therapeutics. In that class was REJOYN, a prescription smartphone app by Click Therapeutics and Otsuka Precision Health for major depressive disorder. That novel treatment had its beginnings through Dr. Charney’s research.

“This goes back to when we were interviewing prisoners of war who were subject to solitary confinement in Vietnam,” said Dr. Charney. “Some of them said that when they were in solitary, all they could do was think.”

A Life Magazine cover from 1967, featuring a prisoner of war from the Vietnam War, whom Drs. Charney and Southwick had interviewed as part of their research on resilience. That body of work eventually led to the development of Rejoyn, a digital app for treating depression.

Over time, some of those individuals reported developing cognitive capacities they never had before, such as being able to do complex multiplication with just their mind. “To me, that suggested evidence of neuroplasticity, where you can change the chemistry and circuits in your brain through repeated tasks,” said Dr. Charney.

With that inspiration, Dr. Charney pondered whether neuroplasticity could be tapped to “correct” the brain circuitry of patients with depression and improve their symptoms.

“We knew something about the circuits of depression that involved the prefrontal cortex and subcortical regions, like the amygdala. What if we developed a task that involved both of those regions?” he said.

Brian Iacoviello, PhD, Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at the Icahn School of Medicine, and Dr. Charney developed the Emotional Faces Memory Task and ran two randomized controlled studies. The findings (npj Digital Medicine, 2018) showed that patients who did the task repeatedly had improvements in their depression symptoms.

Drs. Charney and Iacoviello are co-inventors of patents filed by Mount Sinai for the Emotional Faces Memory Task intervention for the treatment of depression and related psychiatric disorders. Mount Sinai licensed the patents to Click Therapeutics, Inc. and Otsuka Precision Health for the development of REJOYN, a digital treatment for depression. REJOYN received FDA clearance in 2024, as the first prescription adjunctive treatment for adults with MDD.

“Like with ketamine for depression, I see going for a digital approach for depression as a story about being bold,” said Dr. Charney. “Each time, it was a realization that our current understanding isn’t enough, and it’s worth it to take a different approach.”

With more than 50 patents, and a slew of scientific achievements, what’s next for Dr. Charney? “Resilience will continue to inspire me after I step down as Dean,” he said.

Dr. Charney steps down as Dean from the Icahn School of Medicine on Monday, June 30, and Eric J. Nestler, MD, PhD, has been appointed Interim Dean.

“I’m going to need to figure out how to be inspired next. I’m going to continue my research in depression and resilience,” said Dr. Charney. One option that’s underway is working on the fourth edition of his book on resilience. But there might be other bold options out there too.

“I have two therapies on the market,” said Dr. Charney. “My goal is to discover a third. I’m not sure if anyone in psychiatry has ever done that.”

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