Members of the Mount Sinai panel included, from left, Ross L. Cagan, PhD, Director, Center for Personalized Cancer Therapeutics; Matthew Galsky, MD, Director of Genitourinary Medical Oncology; Joshua Brody, MD, Director, Lymphoma Immunotherapy Program; Steven J. Burakoff, MD, Director of The Tisch Cancer Institute; and Kenneth L. Davis, MD, President and Chief Executive Officer, Mount Sinai Health System.
At the 2016 Aspen Ideas Festival, a public gathering dedicated to the global exchange of ideas, faculty and staff from the Mount Sinai Health System provided attendees with complimentary skin cancer and heart health screenings, and participated in panel discussions on topics that included drug prices, living organ donations, gene-editing technologies, and ways to improve health care globally. The festival is presented by the Aspen Institute in partnership with The Atlantic magazine.
In a panel discussion on “Cancer Breakthroughs: The Promise of New Treatments,” specialists from the Mount Sinai Health System discussed significant advances being made in personalized vaccines and immunotherapies. The Tisch Cancer Institute at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai is involved in clinical trials that are exploring multiple approaches to immunotherapy, including intratumoral injections that are being used in combination with traditional treatments, such as surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy.
U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Sylvia Mathews Burwell, seated, was among the more than 570 attendees at the Aspen Ideas Festival who visited the Mount Sinai Health System’s tent this year to receive complimentary blood pressure and cholesterol screenings by medical staff from Mount Sinai Heart, including Marissa Martinez, RN, standing. Attendees also were encouraged to download The Circle of Health app, which focuses on modifiable risk factors of cardiovascular disease, including blood pressure, exercise, weight loss, and tobacco. The app was developed by Valentin Fuster, MD, PhD, Director of Mount Sinai Heart and Physician-in-Chief of The Mount Sinai Hospital.
Vice President Joe Biden takes photos for the Aspen Ideas Festival backstage at the Aspen Ideas Festival in Aspen, Colorado, July 2, 2016. (Official White House Photo by David Lienemann)
Mount Sinai Health System President and Chief Executive Officer Kenneth L. Davis, MD, and his wife Bonnie M. Davis, MD, Mount Sinai Trustee, shook hands and posed with U.S. Vice President Joseph Biden, following the Vice President’s conversation with Walter Isaacson, CEO of the Aspen Institute, which was the closing event of the Aspen Ideas Festival on Saturday, July 2. The Vice President and Mr. Isaacson discussed subjects ranging from the ability to speed cancer treatment discoveries through improved sharing of information between federal government agencies, private industry, and academia, to how political leaders can respond to societal changes and govern more effectively.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry stopped by the Mount Sinai Health System’s tent for an impromptu photograph with Mount Sinai faculty and staff members shortly after arriving at the Aspen Ideas Festival to host a discussion on international policies. In his discussion with Walter Isaacson, President and CEO of the Aspen Institute, Mr. Kerry addressed topics that included Britain’s impending exit from the European Union and renewed relations between the United States and Cuba. “The world is not facing global gridlock,” Mr. Kerry told the audience. “Where we are engaged with a clear strategy and where we use our power thoughtfully we are making progress, in most places. No one said it would be easy or we would get it all done at once.”