Mount Sinai Launches Center for Engineering and Precision Medicine: What Is it and Why Does it Matter?

Updated on Jun 30, 2022 | Research, School

Shirley Ann Jackson, PhD, President of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Priti Balchandani, PhD, and Jonathan Dordick, PhD, attend the launch of the Center for Engineering and Precision Medicine.

The opening of the Center for Engineering and Precision Medicine (CEPM) brings together biomedical experts from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and engineering experts from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute under the same roof.

The center, located on the West Side of Manhattan, represents a first in the city that would bring together two areas of research that greatly benefit from joint development: engineering and precision medicine. The center’s co-directors, Priti Balchandani, PhD, Professor of Diagnostic, Molecular and Interventional Radiology, Neuroscience, and Psychiatry at Icahn Mount Sinai, and Jonathan Dordick, PhD, Institute Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering at Rensselaer, explain why this center is a big deal.

What is precision medicine?

Dr. Balchandani: With every patient being unique, diseases can sometimes occur differently across individuals. Precision medicine is a term meant to describe customized health care tailored to a specific group of patients. In order to do that, we need to apply new technologies engineered to understand causes of specific diseases and combine highly precise and sensitive physiological measurements to provide targeted treatment plans.

There are many areas in which precision medicine plays a big part. Cancer is one of them, as are various neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer’s disease, where having precise tools to measure and integrate different types of patient data is crucial not just to the development of tailored treatment plans, but also for understanding disease mechanisms.

If [engineers] are at the table at every stage of research, they can figure out the best solutions rather than look for what exists out there.

Dr. Jonathan Dordick

Co-Director of CEPM; Institute Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

How have precision medicine and engineering developed in the past?

Dr. Dordick: I wouldn’t say they were siloed, but advancements in either field have sometimes developed alongside each other, or on top of each other, rather than being fully integrated.

For example, devising a therapeutic at a broad level is a traditional path toward patient treatment, but then what are the ways and tools needed to individualize the treatment for an individual patient? How do we scale those methods? Engineering brings in infrastructure, such as using modeling or simulations, as well as broad systems-level expertise that can sometimes help answer those questions.

But there hadn’t really been a case where engineers and biomedical researchers got together to ask those questions from the get-go and figure out what tools might be needed. If they are at the table at every stage of research, they can figure out the best solutions rather than look for what exists out there.

What sort of innovation might this center enable?

Dr. Balchandani: Types of innovations include devices, algorithms, methods, and therapeutics to improve diagnosis, treatment, and surgical care of a wide range of diseases, including neurodegenerative disease, infectious diseases, and cancer.

There will be a mix of basic science and translational work. For example, the basic science work may be focused on revealing disease causes or mechanisms in order to drive new treatments. These preliminary clinical trials are important to establish safety and eventually help treatments receive regulatory approval.

Dr. Dordick: A co-located center in New York City primes us to answer pressing questions. Take COVID-19, for example: Why did some people develop severe disease while others didn’t? What are the mechanisms that lead to long COVID? Through the combined expertise of Rensselaer and Mount Sinai, we hope to learn answers at an individual level about this pandemic, which will make us better prepared for future crises.

I also envision us making strides in improving current therapeutics. Can we devise less invasive techniques for certain treatments? Can we better grow tissue that reduces the risk of rejection? Rensselaer is not a medical school, and through this partnership we’ll be able to know what are the right questions to ask.

Read more about what the new Center will focus on and its future plans

Our hope is that they will be designed with the intention of being tested in clinical trials immediately after development.

Dr. Priti Balchandani

Co-Director of CEPM; Professor of Diagnostic, Molecular and Interventional Radiology, Neuroscience, and Psychiatry at Icahn Mount Sinai

How soon can these innovations reach patients?

Dr. Balchandani: Our hope is that they will be designed with the intention of being tested in clinical trials immediately after development. We will also work with commercial partners to manufacture and deploy the inventions to patients as quickly as possible. We will create a “development lab” within the Center to facilitate this.

New Center for Engineering and Precision Medicine Paves the Way for Two Fields to Work More Closely Together

Updated on Jun 30, 2022 | Featured, Research, School

Shirley Ann Jackson, PhD, President of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Eric Nestler, MD, PhD, Director of The Friedman Brain Institute, and Andrew Kimball, president of the New York City Economic Development Corporation, sign a ceremonial agreement at the launch of the Center for Engineering and Precision Medicine.

The Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute on May 12 announced the opening of the Center for Engineering and Precision Medicine (CEPM), forming a new venture to bridge engineering and biomedical science expertise between the two organizations.

The center, located at 619 West 54th Street in Manhattan, focuses on three research areas—neuroengineering, immunoengineering, and regenerative and reparative medicine. Its footprint includes spaces for wet and dry laboratories, as well as offices for faculty and researchers.

In addition to research, CEPM will develop a joint PhD in engineering and precision medicine, and ultimately master’s degrees and certificate programs. Enrollment could occur as early as the fall of 2023, said Jonathan Dordick, PhD, Institute Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering at Rensselaer and Co-Director of the Center.

The Center is the latest development borne from a partnership between Mount Sinai and Rensselaer—dating to 2013—that has secured more than $70 million in shared research funding. Milestone achievements have included an artificial pancreas system developed by the two institutions and a number of advances in improving treatment and health infrastructure during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We identified that there was a need in New York City and the state for such a collaboration to be the foundation of a new path of innovation between engineering and precision medicine,” said Priti Balchandani, PhD, Professor of Diagnostic, Molecular and Interventional Radiology, Neuroscience, and Psychiatry at Icahn Mount Sinai and Co-Director of the Center.

FAST FACTS

  • Project planned since: 2018
  • Footprint: 14,000 usable square feet
  • Faculty size: Mount Sinai and Rensselaer jointly hope to recruit 20 faculty members within five years for the center
  • Planned academic programs: PhD in Engineering and Precision Medicine jointly awarded by Mount Sinai and Rensselaer, master’s programs, and certificate programs in entrepreneurship and other areas relevant to advanced education at the interface of medicine and engineering.

The creation of the Center sets the stage for engineers to consider the needs of biomedical researchers to develop tools, systems, and infrastructure needed to address unanswered questions, Dr. Dordick said. “As a field, we’ve been asking how engineering can play a closer role at each stage of development in biomedical science from bench to bedside.”

Read a Q&A from the leaders of the new Center on how bridging engineering and precision medicine can benefit patients

The Center will also serve as a hub for industry partners and collaborators. Its “Development Labs” will be working with Mount Sinai Innovation Partners, the team focused on commercializing innovations from Mount Sinai Health System, on technology transfers with industry partners, as well as fostering the creation of startups, Dr. Balchandani said.

“This partnership with Rensselaer is truly a first where not only are two organizations coming together for research and academic excellence,” she noted, “it is also creating a partnership that will augment translational work in the city.”

Mount Sinai is also growing its presence in the area by building laboratory spaces in a facility on 11th Avenue, adjacent to the Center, for the Mount Sinai West campus.

“Ultimately, the goal is to develop new innovations that will benefit patients,” Dr. Dordick said. “The work at the Center cannot start soon enough.”

Medical Students Dared to Enter the Tank

Updated on Jun 30, 2022 | School

Mount Sinai School of Medicine Photo by Robert Caplin

Joseph Mari, Susan Lerner, MD,; and Marc Napp, MD grill the medical students after hearing their patient safety and quality care improvement proposals.

InFocus 7 at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai culminated with third-year medical students participating in the School’s first Med Ed Tank—a series of student pitches modeled after the popular ABC television series “Shark Tank.” InFocus weeks are part of the School’s new MD Program curriculum, where students are immersed in innovative courses outside of the classroom to focus their training on research methods, global health, service learning, leadership, scientific innovation, and patient safety and quality care—the latter being the focus for InFocus 7. (more…)

25 Years and Counting

May 17, 2016 | School

Nada Gligorov, PhD of the Bioethics Program at ISMMS responds to a research presentation.

Nada Gligorov, PhD of the Bioethics Program at ISMMS responds to a research presentation.

The Oxford-Mount Sinai Consortium on Bioethics convened April 11–13, 2016 at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai (ISMMS) for an exchange of research  on ethical issues in medicine and biomedical science. Celebrating its 25th anniversary, the Consortium—co-founded by Rosamond Rhodes, PhD; Stefan Baumrin, PhD, JD; and Daniel Moros, MD—is an interdisciplinary collaboration which focuses on faculty development. The annual meeting encourages its members to devote a portion of their research to bioethical topics and share their findings. (more…)

Margaret H. Baron Takes the Reins of MD-PhD Training

Mar 13, 2015 | Inside, School

Margaret H. Baron, MD, PhD, an internationally recognized developmental biologist at the Mount Sinai Health System, has been named Senior Associate Dean for Education and Director of the
MD-PhD Program at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. In her new role, Dr. Baron, the Irene and Dr. Arthur M. Fishberg Professor of Medicine, will draw upon her leadership experience in graduate education to train the next generation of physician-scientists at Mount Sinai. (more…)

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