Jul 13, 2023 | School
Erica Palladino, MPH, has held increasingly responsible positions in health communications at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services after she received a Master of Public Health degree in the Health Promotion and Disease Prevention track from Mount Sinai’s Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences in 2019.
In the following Q&A, Ms. Palladino discusses her passion for public health and how her work in federal government enables her to make a true impact on the health of women and children.
What is your current job?
I’m a health communications specialist at the Maternal and Child Health Bureau (MCHB) in the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), which is an agency of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). I write about and promote how HRSA-funded programs improve the lives of mothers and their children.
After graduating with my MPH, I began as an Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education (ORISE) fellow in the Office of the Surgeon General and I then transitioned to a federal Public Health Analyst at HHS, but I knew from my time at Mount Sinai after taking some reproductive health and maternal health classes that I wanted to go in this direction.
Among my day-to-day responsibilities, I write press releases about government funding that is available and awarded to states, doctors, local health departments, and community-based organizations that help our maternal and child populations. I write speeches for HRSA leadership when they attend events about these topics, and I help create campaigns that increase awareness and highlight the work of those who have received our funding.
A very important part of what we do is use plain language to effectively communicate our programs and health impact. We discuss prevention, promote healthy behavior modifications, and provide resources available to moms. Resources include the maternal mental health hotline that allows pregnant or postpartum moms who are experiencing mental health challenges to talk to counselors and get support, so they don’t feel like they’re alone.
Far too many women die or experience life-threatening pregnancy-related complications in this country. But we also know that 80 percent of these pregnancy-related deaths are preventable. The federal government is helping in whatever ways we can. Specifically, at HRSA, we support community-based programs with a focus on increasing access to care, strengthening the maternal health workforce, and improving the quality of care especially for those who are geographically isolated, and economically, or medically vulnerable.
I love this position because it gives me the opportunity to show people that the federal funding truly impacts the communities that need it the most.
Why a master’s degree?
Public health is a very broad field, which may seem overwhelming at first, but you can do so many different things with it. So, for me, the best part of Mount Sinai was learning about my professors’ backgrounds and seeing what career options were out there. They would say, “When I was at the CDC, this is what I did,” or, “I was a contractor for the health department, and this is how I got there.” I think the stories and experiences that professors shared were helpful in influencing my journey.
I didn’t even realize I had any interest in maternal health until I took the Health Promotion Strategies class. The professor there connected me with my Applied Practice Experience advisor at the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene: Bureau of Maternal, Infant, and Reproductive Health. I’m thankful to Mount Sinai for highlighting the importance of health literacy within maternal health and making me realize that this is one of those areas where we can really make a difference.
What are your next career goals?
I see myself staying at HRSA MCHB for now because I love my coworkers and my job. A great aspect of working for the federal government is that you can easily transfer to other agencies so, down the line, I could go to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) or the National Institutes of Health, or I could work for the Secretary of Health at HHS. I’m very happy that I’m in a role where I feel fulfilled and where everyone around me is so passionate about what they do.
Any advice for students?
I recommend that students—and graduates—maintain relationships with their professors and reach out to department administrators to put them in touch with alumni. These people are very well-connected and can be very helpful when looking for a job or career advice.
Mount Sinai was a great resource for internships and fellowships, and I highly recommend that students take advantage of those while pursuing their degree and after graduation. I was working full time as a pharmaceutical copywriter while getting my MPH, so I was nervous to take a fellowship after graduation. But, as an ORISE fellow, I was able to learn from a variety of leaders within HHS and home in on certain subjects. As a fellow, I attended numerous events and traveled with the Surgeon General. I got to do a lot of things that I wouldn’t have done if I had been a full-time federal employee. I’m very thankful that Mount Sinai pushed those fellowship opportunities to the graduates.
Jul 13, 2023 | School
Denise Iliff received her Master of Science degree in Biomedical Science with a concentration in Systems Biology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai’s Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences in 2023. Under the mentorship of James Iatridis, PhD, Ms. Iliff conducted award-winning research in his Spine and Bioengineering Lab on spinal injuries and chronic pain. Dr. Iatridis is the Mount Sinai Endowed Chair in Orthopedic Research, Vice Chair for Research, and Director of Spine Research in the Leni and Peter W. May Department of Orthopedics at Icahn Mount Sinai.
In the following Q&A, Ms. Iliff discusses her experience at Icahn Mount Sinai and her career aspirations.
Why this area of study?
I graduated from the University of Kansas during COVID-19. My plan was to go to medical school, but I didn’t feel I was fully prepared. I wanted to find a job, and everything was super crazy, but I found a position in a lab at the University of Missouri-Kansas City Medical Campus. I had never had a research job, so I thought I would try it out, and I fell in love with it. I realized this would be a really good and logical next step for me, so I started exploring master’s programs in biomedical sciences that involved research. I was super excited to come to Icahn Mount Sinai because I could learn more about biology in the medical sense, while also doing research.
What were some of your achievements as a master’s student?
I was fortunate to work on two very interesting projects at the Iatridis Spine Bioengineering Lab and to present our findings at conferences. My work focuses on utilizing in vivo rat models to investigate how injuries to the intervertebral disc and endplates progress to spinal cord sensitization and chronic pain. The goal is to gain greater understanding of painful degenerative disc disease. For my thesis, I was given the incredible opportunity to create a project from beginning to end, all the prep work and everything up through defending the research. It has been an amazing experience.
I also had the opportunity to attend conferences, which is a great honor but, more importantly, I learned so much about how to network with scientists from many different backgrounds and how to present and speak to doctors and PhDs about my work and answer questions. I recently presented a talk at the the annual meeting of the Orthopaedic Research Society in Dallas, where I received the Best Podium award for spine section research. At the Philadelphia Spine Research Symposium, I presented a poster and received the Best Poster Award for outstanding scientific research in the pain, pathobiology, and crosstalk category. It’s all super exciting stuff, all thanks to the opportunities I had with Dr. Iatridis.
What are the strong points of this program?
Mount Sinai is such a strong research institution, which was very important to me. The diversity of labs is really what attracted me. Also, Mount Sinai has an incredible array of faculty from virtually all areas of science that a student would want to pursue.
As I read up on the program, I realized that there was a strong sense of community. I was one of the directors of the Master of Biomedical Science mentorship program, where second-year students mentor the first-years. That was a very important program for me when I came here because I was moving from Kansas to New York just as things were starting to open up again after COVID-19. Of course, the administration looks out for us, but students can offer other students a different perspective on the ins and outs. It’s an incredible program that helps orient students from undergrad or wherever they’re at in life to grad school. This program is a really good part of Mount Sinai.
What’s next?
I’m going to continue my research in the Iatridis Spine Lab as a research assistant because I still have more questions I want to answer in my project. After that, I’ll apply to physician assistant (PA) school. I enjoy patient-facing work and I think becoming a PA in a surgical specialty would be a good fit for me.
Jul 13, 2023 | School
After entering the MHA program at Mount Sinai’s Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences in 2021, Daniel Han accepted a position as Assistant Project Manager in the Department of Dermatology Clinical Trials Office at the Mount Sinai Doctors faculty practice, where he continues to work after completing the program in 2023.
In the following Q&A, Mr. Han discusses how he expects his degree to lay the foundation for a career in health administration.
Can you describe your current job?
I am responsible for coordinating and managing various aspects of clinical research projects in our department. This includes protocol development, regulatory compliance, patient recruitment, and coordination with the leadership teams. This job has given me valuable experience in project management and data analysis, and it has allowed me to collaborate with colleagues throughout the Mount Sinai Health System.
What first attracted you to this field of study?
I am passionate about health care management, and I want to develop a deeper understanding of how the health care sector operates and acquire the specialized skills, including leadership skills, to enable me to address the challenges and emerging trends in the industry. I want to make a difference, not only in the lives of patients, but also in the efficiency, cost-effectiveness, and quality of patient care achieved in hospitals and health care systems.
How, specifically, does this program prepare students for a career in health care management?
This program emphasizes a multidisciplinary approach to health care administration and offers a wide range of courses including finance, management, policy, and information technology. The health informatics and technology courses have sparked my interest in finding opportunities to improve the efficiency and accuracy of electronic health record data mining for patient recruitment in clinical trials. One of the things I appreciated most was the opportunity to gain insight from the executive leaders at Mount Sinai who are experts in their fields. I believe that the skills and knowledge I have gained through this program’s curriculum will not only benefit me in my current project manager role but also help me achieve my long-term career goals in health care administration.
One of the things I find appealing about Mount Sinai is the institution’s overall commitment to advancing patient care and driving medical advances, which aligns with my own goals. Mount Sinai fosters a collaborative environment that encourages an exchange of ideas and promotes a holistic approach to health care. And I believe in their commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion.
What’s next?
I see myself using the tools that I learned—and practiced—during my graduate studies to help me gain a leadership position within a health care organization, preferably at Mount Sinai. I have had the opportunity to learn from senior- and executive-level professionals already established in their fields, and I plan to build on that strong foundation to advance to high-level managerial or executive positions, which is my career goal. Ultimately, I want to make a meaningful impact on patient outcomes and the overall delivery of health care services.
Jul 13, 2023 | School
As a first-generation American born to South Asian immigrants in a working-class neighborhood in Queens, New York, Adina Singh knew that many in her community were in poor health. It wasn’t until her sophomore year at Hunter College that she realized that many immigrants, especially older people, do not have the same access to health care as others. That’s when she knew she wanted to work toward a solution, which led her to pursue an MPH in Health Care Management at Mount Sinai’s Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences.
In the following Q&A, Ms. Singh discusses how her experience at Icahn Mount Sinai prepared her for addressing health care gaps among New Yorkers.
Why an MPH degree?
Living in an immigrant community, I see the health struggles this population goes through, especially our parents and grandparents. They don’t know how to access health care and have not been educated on the importance of going to their doctor’s visits, following up, and doing the things necessary to stay healthy. As a result, they may develop chronic illnesses like diabetes, which affect their quality of life and can become life-threatening. Once I realized the health disparities among New Yorkers, particularly for minorities and immigrants, I knew I wanted to be part of the solution. That’s why I chose public health. By focusing specifically on health care management, I will be able to initiate and implement programs that people can access and also learn how to practice self-advocacy confidently when seeking care.
What were your top achievements as a master’s student?
For my applied practice experience fieldwork, I focused on addressing food insecurity in the neighborhoods surrounding Mount Sinai, including Harlem. I worked with Mount Sinai’s KidsThrive program, which predominantly serves children on public insurance and screens for food insecurity, offers emergency food packages from our onsite food pantry to families in need, and refers them to community-based organizations at the Mount Sinai Pediatric Associates clinic. After seeing their pediatrician, families can go down the hall to the food pantry for an emergency food package. It helps sustain them while we refer them to a long-term program through New York Common Pantry [New York City’s largest community-based food pantry that focuses on underserved communities] for food-related services. There, they receive food packages on a regular basis, among other food-related services.
Through KidsThrive, we went beyond sustenance to focus on the quality of the food packages and their appropriateness for each family. We created recipes that suited each family’s needs, taking into account preparation time, new cuisines they were interested in trying, and more. Additionally, we created a value-based payment proposal for a Medicaid insurance plan that would identify how to measure and track the impact of food insecurity interventions in our pediatric clinic population.
What are the strong points of this master’s program?
Mount Sinai is amazing and what stands out for me is the phenomenal faculty. They’re all busy in the field of public health—as doctors or program coordinators, even as the president of a hospital—and yet they all contribute to the work that students are doing and support us so that we, too, can contribute one day.
They are very approachable. If a student asks for input on a project or career advice, faculty will help. They support you as a person and as a young professional. Our faculty and administration are role models and show us that there are folks who want to leave our community better than they found it. They truly care about their students, even after they graduate. Some graduates come back as course instructors or program managers, and I think that speaks volumes, that folks want to come back to Mount Sinai, which has given them so much.
What’s next?
I want to contribute to the work that’s already being done in New York to promote health literacy and self-management of chronic health diseases within minority populations in New York City. Eventually, I want to add clinical understanding and advocacy to my toolbox by becoming a physician to bridge this gap. I want to look at my patients holistically and not just treat their symptoms, but also look for the root causes. If a child has asthma, you can give them an inhaler. But if there’s mold in the house, or leaking pipes that cause the paint to chip in the walls, you can give them that inhaler, but the root of the problem is not solved. I want to be part of a team that will address these issues.
Updated on Jul 14, 2023 | Alumni, Featured, Nursing, School
Belle Herman Weiss, retired nurse and oldest-known alum of Mount Sinai Phillips School of Nursing (formerly Beth Israel School of Nursing)
At 106 years old, Belle Herman Weiss, RN, is thought to be the oldest living alum from the Beth Israel School of Nursing, now the Mount Sinai Phillips School of Nursing (founded in 1902), and one of the oldest living nurses in New York. Belle, who retired years ago and lives in Westchester County, fondly recalls her time in nursing school, which she began at just 16 years old—during a time when harmful diseases were widespread and difficult to treat.
“I enjoyed all the experiences I had to go through in nursing school,” says Belle, who graduated in 1936. “I loved being with a lot of other young women and having a goal to achieve.”
A good student who loved studying medicine, Belle was fascinated with figuring out patients’ diagnoses, which she compares to being a detective solving medical mysteries. “My favorite subjects were anatomy and physiology. I had a good memory and I was able to remember all the bones and their function. I enjoyed being able to recite the different parts of the body and what they did,” she says.
However, the lack of penicillin and treatments for infectious diseases in the 1930s and 1940s made nursing a challenging—and potentially dangerous—career path. She remembers contracting a skin lesion from tuberculosis at a hospital she worked in, noting she was “very lucky” it did not spread to her chest.
“It was a very difficult time, and [we were] studying at a bad time,” says Belle of being a nursing student. But she says many nurses managed to avoid infections by donning the cloth masks, rubber gloves, and gowns available at the time, and especially, routinely washing their hands. “Luckily, most of us stayed pretty healthy,” she says.
After graduating from the Beth Israel School of Nursing, Belle received a public health degree from New York University, which she says aided her when she later worked for The Willard Parker Hospital in Manhattan, where many patients had polio and were cared for in iron lungs (large horizontal machines that patients would lie in, which stimulated breathing). Medical technology in those days, she explains, was far more rudimentary and cumbersome to work with. For example, intravenous (IV) therapy—a routine therapy administered by nurses today using prepackaged components and fluids—was rarely ordered in the 1930s and 1940s. When it was, nurses had to prepare all the separate components—a glass bottle of saline, a separate rubber stopper and tubing, and a metal needle—and it was quite a process.
How were IVs given in the 1940s and 1950s? 106-year-old nurse Belle Herman Weiss explains:
First you got the IV pole. Then you went into the utility room and you got a sterilized package that contained the container that you were going to put the saline in. Then you got the connection of tubing, and then you got the needle that went with it. Then you got the saline that you had to pour into it. You had to get this glass container connected to the rubber tubing and put a stopper on the tubing so it wouldn’t leak out. Then you filled the container with the saline from a big bottle and hung it on the pole. Then you let the air run out, and then you connected the needle. Before you called a physician to get them to put the IV in, you had to wrap two hot water bottles around the container to warm the fluid to room temperature. That’s how an IV was given.
She says hospitals also lacked antibiotics. In their absence, she says doctors would order “bodily irrigations”—treatments that involved washing out the nose, eyes, ears, throat, and other orifices, in the hope it would wash away disease.
“We used to have a saying, ‘If in doubt, wash it out,’” Belle says, adding that nurses also kept patients healthy by routinely bathing them “head to toe.”
After retiring from nursing at age 70, Belle worked in a doctor’s office as an administrator until she was 92. She put her nursing degree and training to good use over her long career—working at hospitals throughout New York City, Long Island, and Westchester County, as well as on an ambulance, where she helped transport patients with communicable diseases. She says she enjoyed taking care of people, and particularly loved her pediatric patients. One little girl who died from kidney disease stands out to her the most.
“I can still picture her sometimes, walking around her little crib, and reaching out her arms for me to pick her up,” she says. “Those memories stick with me.”
While Belle enjoyed a storied nursing career—in addition to getting married in 1943 and having three children, including a daughter who is an advanced practice nurse in Westchester County—the two-and-a-half years she spent training at the Beth Israel School of Nursing are still fresh in her memory. She remembers the intensive 12-hour work schedules, and still recalls the names of many fellow students and head nurses she trained with. The nursing program was very disciplined, she says, and helped her acquire valuable experience for her nursing career.
“I did get a very good training,” remembers Belle of the Beth Israel School of Nursing. “We treated the patients with elite nursing care.”
Updated on Jun 15, 2023 | Featured, Research, School, Vaccines
From left to right, Peter Palese, PhD, Horace W. Goldsmith Professor of Medicine; Miriam Merad, MD, PhD, Mount Sinai Professor in Cancer Immunology; Özlem Türeci, MD, Chief Medical Officer of BioNTech; Uğur Şahin, MD, Chief Executive Officer of BioNTech; Dennis Charney, MD, Anne and Joel Ehrenkranz Dean of Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
One of the great tools that helped turn the tide of the COVID-19 pandemic was the use of vaccines, which prevented millions of deaths and hospitalizations in the U.S. and around the world. Key vaccines were those based on messenger RNA (mRNA) technology, which provide information for the molecules that teach the cells in the body to generate proteins used by viruses or cancers, allowing the body’s immune system to recognize and fight off future infections or transformed cancer cells.
The Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai honored the efforts of executives of German biotechnology firm BioNTech, which partnered with Pfizer to develop and make available one of the most widely used COVID-19 vaccines in the country, during its 54th Commencement on Thursday, May 11. Uğur Şahin, MD, Chief Executive Officer of BioNTech, and Özlem Türeci, MD, its Chief Medical Officer, received honorary Doctor of Science degrees.
Research into mRNA technology for vaccines goes back to the 1990s, and has grown in leaps and bounds since, said Dr. Türeci in a guest lecture hosted by the Marc and Jennifer Lipschultz Precision Immunology Institute, held separately from the Commencement.
The COVID-19 pandemic provided an opportunity for the technology to be adapted at a large scale, and the momentum gained and lessons learned was only the starting point to pave the way for greater heights for the development of mRNA vaccines, she said.
In this Q&A, Drs. Şahin and Türeci spoke about what the future of mRNA vaccines could look like.
After two years of COVID-19 vaccines:
- An estimated 18 million hospitalizations were prevented
- More than 3 million deaths were avoided
Source: New York City-based foundation The Commonwealth Fund
Percentage vaccinated in United States by manufacturer:
- Pfizer/BioNTech: 60%
- Moderna: 37%
- Johnson & Johnson: 3%
Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
What are some active areas of research in which mRNA technology is being worked on?
Dr. Şahin: There are investigational cancer vaccines in which mRNA technology is being used to deliver instructions to generate antibodies or cytokines. This technology can theoretically be used to deliver any bioactive molecule.
Our focus at the moment is the development of cancer vaccines, and one special application of cancer vaccines we’re working on is the so-called “personalized cancer vaccines.” mRNA technology is particularly well suited to deliver a vaccine that consists of mutations of the tumor identified from the patient.
Dr. Türeci presenting to members of the Marc and Jennifer Lipschultz Precision Immunology Institute.
What is it about mRNA technology that makes it so well suited for cancer vaccines?
Dr. Türeci: We have been interested in cancer vaccines all along, and tried different technologies, and mRNA is the delivery technology that comes with its own edge. Its immunogenicity is very versatile and its transience has the potential to lead to a favorable safety profile. These characteristics are the reasons why we chose mRNA to deliver cancer antigens.
Any solid cancer could be appropriate for application. We have ongoing clinical trials in melanoma, head-and-neck cancer, pancreatic cancer, and non-small cell lung cancer.
Beyond cancer vaccines, we believe any bioactive cancer immunotherapy that is based on protein could be delivered by mRNA.
What about non-cancer diseases? Is mRNA technology suitable there?
Dr. Türeci: There are other areas, such as infectious diseases, in which mRNA could have an advantage. As long as you have the right protein structure to stimulate an immune response, you can theoretically also use mRNA here.
There are clinical trials in infectious diseases: COVID-19, for example, but also malaria or shingles.
What are some current limitations of mRNA technology? And how are researchers working to overcome those?
Dr. Türeci: We are very far advanced in the delivery component of the technology, and these advancements have made COVID-19 vaccines, as well as cancer vaccines in clinical testing, feasible. However, if you want to target specific organs, you need specialized, targeted delivery technologies.
For example, if you want to address something in the brain, you need a delivery technology that brings the mRNA into the brain. There may be monogenetic diseases in which the sample protein is deficient in the organ, and so limits how the mRNA can be expressed there.
So the lipid nanoparticle used to contain the COVID-19 vaccine, for example, might not be applicable for any other organs?
Dr. Türeci: This delivery technology was specifically designed and developed to deliver mRNA to the lymphatic system. If the mRNA needs to be delivered to different organs, it required new formulation.
When the public first became aware of mRNA technology through COVID-19 vaccines, there was skepticism. Do you envision similar skepticism as new mRNA vaccines roll out, and if so, how can we dispel such skepticism?
Dr. Türeci: Skepticism can only be addressed by transparent communication, through the disclosure of data, and proper education. I think there is a zeitgeist of skepticism. That skepticism isn’t necessarily specific to mRNA technology. But once they start to understand the mechanisms behind the technology, and the rationale of why we’re working on it, we can start to dispel it.
Do you foresee mRNA technology to grow exponentially into the future?
Dr. Şahin: Yes, mRNA vaccines could be really big, but it will happen slowly. It will take a few more years, but we are starting to see really promising candidates using this technology.
