Celebrating Science and Medicine at Convocation

Convocation 2017 was an especially inspiring event for the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. It was a celebratory evening where 10 renowned faculty members were honored, the State of the School address was delivered, and a transformational strategic plan, “Boldly Expanding the Frontier of Science and Medicine,” was unveiled. This blueprint promises unprecedented investment across key areas with the fundamental goal of advancing science and medicine, and accelerating commercial development of products, drugs, and devices to predict, prevent, and cure human disease.

Dennis S. Charney, MD, Anne and Joel Ehrenkranz Dean, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, and President for Academic Affairs, Mount Sinai Health System, presided over the Convocation ceremony, held on Thursday, September 7, presenting a set of guiding principles that will drive the 2017 strategic plan for years to come.

“The state of the school is strong,” Dr. Charney told the guests in Goldwurm Auditorium, who included the Convocation honorees, along with their families and friends, faculty and staff, and benefactors who generously support Mount Sinai. He spotlighted research accomplishments, faculty growth and clinical expansion, an outstanding and diverse matriculating class of medical and graduate students, new academic affiliations, and significant investments that are already driving drug discovery and commercialization.

Among the high points for the School of Medicine:

• It ranks No. 2 in research dollars per investigator among private U.S. medical schools, according to the Association of American Medical Colleges.
• The number of full-time faculty has grown by 70 percent since the creation of the Mount Sinai Health System in 2013, and continued growth is expected as new strategic initiatives are implemented.
• It has the largest Graduate Medical Education program in the nation—2,193 residents and fellows. “We have a great responsibility to train the next generation of leaders in medicine,” he said.
• The matriculating class of medical students “has a median grade point average of 3.83 (out of 4.0) and the students come from the best schools in the country,” Dr. Charney noted.
• The PhD program has the highest metrics in its history, and the number of Master’s programs continues to grow. New academic collaborations and affiliations enhance access to courses in mathematics and engineering.
• Mount Sinai reached a diversity milestone: in 2017 it was ranked No. 1 by DiversityInc magazine among hospitals and health care systems in the nation for excellence in diversity management and best practices.

Dr. Charney especially noted significant commercialization achievements. “Our science is headed toward commercialization, and our technology transfer office, Mount Sinai Innovation Partners, is providing the infrastructure for that to happen,” he told the audience. “To facilitate this, the School of Medicine is funding an accelerator program, beginning with a $10 million investment, to identify Mount Sinai science that needs further financial investment so the science is ready for commercialization with an industry partner.” He then spotlighted “the most dramatic example” of success in this arena: the June launch of Sema4, a first-of-its-kind School of Medicine-owned company “whose mission is to revolutionize clinical diagnostics and to create a big data information system that will enable us to identify ways to better treat human disease.”

Dr. Charney promised that the bold new strategic plan would build upon the achievements of the past decade, which included establishing the Mount Sinai Health System, creating 19 research institutes, opening the Hess Center for Science and Medicine, establishing The Tisch Cancer Institute and becoming a National Cancer Institute-designated center, and, significantly, instituting a culture of innovation and entrepreneurship. This includes a multimillion-dollar collaboration between Mount Sinai and three other NCI-designated cancer centers and Celgene Corp. to advance novel therapies for cancer.

At the core of the new strategic plan, he said, is a set of guiding principles that will:

• take advantage of the size and excellence of the Mount Sinai Health System
• establish unrivaled excellence in medical and graduate education
• anticipate and fund new areas of research that will result in discovery of novel approaches to disease diagnosis and treatment
• invest further in current areas of excellence
• power an “engine of discovery” to create more intellectual property, more collaborations with industry, and more Mount Sinai companies.

Dr. Charney cited five new research institutes in the areas of addiction, adolescent health, exposomics, transformative clinical trials, and women’s health, and an expansion of the scope of diabetes/obesity, gastroenterology, nephrology, pulmonary, and pediatrics research, among other areas.

In a broad overview of the strategic plan, he presented a road map:

• Graduate Education would spearhead a pedagogical shift to transform biomedical research and its translation into precision medicine—“a major initiative of the National Institutes of Health, and Mount Sinai will lead the way.”
• Four new centers of excellence in the areas of greatest potential—in neurotherapeutics, focused on developing novel therapeutics for brain disorders; in discovery medicine, to leverage novel insights in human genetics and genomics; in immunotherapeutics, to develop human therapeutic antibodies and vaccines that target cancer, heart disease, diabetes, and other areas; and in genome editing.
• Further investment in current areas of excellence in the clinical sciences— brain, cancer, diabetes, geriatrics, heart, infectious diseases—as well as the sciences that underpin these disciplines: cell and developmental biology, genetics and genomic sciences, microbiology, neuroscience, and pharmacological sciences. He also envisioned transformational exploration of the brain.

According to Dr. Charney, “A great strategic plan anticipates what’s not so obvious, but where science and medical care are going.” Ultimately, he said, “The most important measure of our success will be discoveries that make the Mount Sinai Health System the nation’s best and improve the lives of our patients locally and around the world.”

Following the address, Dr. Charney bestowed endowed titles on 10 “spectacular” leaders in their field who have advanced biomedical science, dermatology research, environmental medicine and public health, geriatrics and palliative medicine, molecular medicine, neurology, neurotherapeutics, nursing, and vascular surgery (see below).

Said Kenneth L. Davis, MD, President and Chief Executive Officer, Mount Sinai Health System: “I want to thank our dedicated philanthropists who have made these chairs possible, many of whom are here celebrating with us tonight. We thank you for the support you provide and your belief in our commitment to excellence in research, education, and clinical care.”

To view the State of the School presentation, please go to: http://icahn.mssm.edu/state.

From left: Joel Dudley, PhD; Andrea Dunaif, MD; R. Sean Morrison, MD; Emma Guttman-Yassky, MD, PhD; James F. McKinsey, MD; Dennis S. Charney, MD; Helen Mayberg, MD; Anne Bowcock, PhD; Frances Cartwright, PhD; and Manish Arora, PhD, MPH. (Not pictured is honoree Joanna Jen, MD, PhD.)

The Convocation Honorees

Manish Arora, PhD, MPH, Edith J. Baerwald Professor of Environmental Medicine and Public Health

Anne Bowcock, PhD, Norman Orentreich, MD Professor of Dermatology Research

Frances Cartwright, PhD, Edgar M. Cullman, Sr. Chair of the Department of Nursing

Joel Dudley, PhD, Mount Sinai Professor in Biomedical Data Science

Andrea Dunaif, MD, Lillian and Henry M. Stratton Professor of Molecular Medicine

Emma Guttman-Yassky, MD, PhD, Sol and Clara Kest Professor of Dermatology

Joanna Jen, MD, PhD, Dr. Morris B. Bender Professor of Neurology

Helen Mayberg, MD, Mount Sinai Professor in Neurotherapeutics

James F. McKinsey, MD, Mount Sinai Professor in Vascular Surgery

R. Sean Morrison, MD, Ellen and Howard C. Katz Chair in Geriatrics and Palliative Medicine

 

A Salute to a Legendary Neurologist

Bernard Cohen, MD, who was named the inaugural Dr. Morris B. Bender Professor of Neurology in 1976, received a special tribute at Convocation. Over his 54 years of “nonstop funding” by the National Institutes of Health and NASA, Dr. Cohen has been a “tenacious, pioneering, vigorous, and enthusiastic” scientist, said Dennis S. Charney, MD. Among Dr. Cohen’s achievements was the first successful cure for mal de débarquement syndrome, a condition marked by continuous rocking, swaying, and bobbing after sea voyages.