Innovation Awards 23_110
Innovation Awards 23_110

Mount Sinai Innovation Awards

About

On Monday November 6 2023, the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai hosted the annual Mount Sinai Innovation Awards, celebrating numerous honors that recognize significant contributions in biomedical education and industry.

Through the dedication of presenters, participants, attendees, and our event organizers, the Innovation Awards continue to showcase and inspire incredible ingenuity and advances in research, technology, medicine, and healthcare.

Event Hosts: Office of the Dean, Mount Sinai Innovation Partners (MSIP), The Office of Faculty Development (OFD), Office for Diversity and Inclusion, Keystone for Incubating Innovation in Life Sciences Network (KiiLN), CONDUITS – Institutes for Translational Sciences, Sinai BioDesign, Department of Medical Education, Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, Graduate Medical Education Office, Office of Postdoctoral Affairs

Photos 2023

Highlights 2023

Inventor of the Year
The Mount Sinai Inventor of the Year Award has been created to recognize individual or collaborative investigators in the Mount Sinai Health System whose research is making, or has the potential to make, significant positive and product-driven impacts on health.
Winner: Stuart C. Sealfon, MD
Description: Dr. Sealfon developed epigenetic markers to identify individuals with past exposures to weapons of mass destruction and diagnose infectious diseases, with funding from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) ECHO program. He is a founder of GNOMX, a company formed to advance and commercialize this technology.
 
Transaction of the Year
The Mount Sinai Transaction of the Year award recognizes a notable technology from the Mount Sinai Health System that represents a major breakthrough in research and a strong commercial partnership for advancement.
Winner: Thomas Zwaka, MD, PhD, Marion Dejosez Zwaka, PhD, and Adolfo García-Sastre, PhD
Description: Paratus Sciences is developing the tools and methods necessary to understand bat biology and apply these insights to identify and develop new therapies to address some of the most challenging health issues facing humankind.
 
Mount Sinai Pitch Challenge
The Mount Sinai Pitch Challenge is the capstone event for MSIP’s Entrepreneurship Program, where finalists compete for a cash prize and pro-bono services to continue the development of healthcare solutions. Teams are judged by entrepreneurship and venture capital experts.
Winner: Susan Khalil, MD, MS, Jacqueline Slobin, BA, Adriana Sistig, MS, Riya Murty Bandanapudi, MBBS, Ben Fox, MS, and Vibhor Mahajan, MS, MPH
Description: EndoCare is developing a clinical decision support system designed to facilitate detection of early-stage endometriosis to improve patient outcomes and promote healthcare equity.
 
Junior Faculty Innovative Idea Prize
This award aims to support a collaborative, innovative, research idea by junior faculty that can potentially be translated into a marketable product through the development of therapeutics, devices, diagnostics, digital health applications, and/or data driven educational or community-based interventions.
Winner: Andrew D. Delgado, PhD and Rachel Fremont, MD, PhD
Description: This project will develop a new statistical model to evaluate the multidimensional effects of a novel strategy combining psilocybin and pimavanserin to treat major depressive disorder in older adults. A global test statistic will be developed to assess change and provide a comprehensive understanding of the therapy’s effect.
 
KiiLN Postdoctoral Entrepreneurship Award
The KiiLN Postdoctoral Entrepreneurship Award is designed to highlight entrepreneurial endeavors of Mount Sinai postdoctoral fellows who co-found or lead companies by advancing their discoveries beyond the bench to create diagnostics, devices, and therapeutic products or by applying other solutions, in order to address unmet needs in life sciences.
Winner: Claudia Tapia-Alveal, PhD, Co-founder and CSO, Clonecheck LLC
Description: MM is a neoplasm of plasma cells that secrete patient unique monoclonal Ig (M-Ig). M-Ig aptameric biosensors allow for non-invasive MRD detection in serum. The Clonecheck methodology is patient specific, rapid, cost-effective and adaptable to point of care.
Winner: Robert J. Wiener, PhD, Co-Founder, Vasorep
Description: Vasorep is a next generation platform for preclinical vascular drug toxicity testing. Vasorep offers a patient-specific stem cell model of vasculature to evaluate drugs for efficacy and toxicity.
 
i3 Prism
The Mount Sinai i3 Prism technology commercialization fund aims to bring new health care solutions to patients and society by advancing technologies from women and BIPOC inventors closer to the marketplace.
Winner: Mary Catherine George, PhD, MM – VR Self-Hypnosis Software for the Treatment of Chronic Pain in People with HIV
Winner: Denzel Faulkner, M.Eng – Real Time Monitoring of Endovascular Embolization
Winner: Susan Khalil, MD, MS – Role of inflammation and Biomarkers in Endometriosis: The Path to Minimally Invasive Diagnosis and Interventions
 
i3 Genesis
i3 Genesis is an annual funding opportunity for early-stage healthcare technologies with clear potential for commercialization. Part of MSIP’s i3 Family of Funds, this opportunity aims to support and translate innovations to achieve value inflection points.
Winner: Hina Chaudhry, MD and Sangeetha Vadakke-Madathil, PhD – Human CDX2 Cells for Cardiac Repair
Winner: Bruce D. Gelb, MD, Ross L. Cagan, PhD, and Jian Jin, PhD – Advancing Novel RASopathy Therapeutics
Winner: Yun Soung Kim, PhD, Ankit Parekh, PhD, Sajila Wickramaratne, PhD, and Ashok Chhetry, PhD – Development of a Forehead-Wearable Adhesive Sensor for Accurate Home Sleep Assessment
Winner: Ian C. Odland, BS, Tyree D. Williams, M.Eng, Joseph Borello, PhD, Tanvir F. Choudhri, MD, and Eugene Ivan Hrabarchuk, BS – Sixth Sense Surgical Steerable Screwdriver
Winner: Joseph Borrello, PhD, Kevin Costa, PhD, Kiyotake Ishikawa, MD, PhD, and James Iatridis, PhD – The MeTuSA Cardiac Repair Patch
Winner: Tirone Young, BS (Mentors: Ben Rodriguez, BS, Joe Borello, PhD, Ben Rapoport, MD, PhD, and Joshua Bederson, MD) – Lasso Cauterizer for Glioblastoma
 
DIH Partners Award
The Diversity Innovation Hub – Partners award gives recognition, appreciation and acknowledgement to a key partner that has advanced the efforts of the Hub to create and increase the diversity in the entrepreneurship space
Winner: Robbie Freeman, MSN, RN, NE-BC
 
DIH Rising Stars Award
The Diversity Innovation Hub – Rising Stars Award to recognize a rising entrepreneur/ innovator as part of the Diversity Innovation Hub programming.
Winner: Ashley Abid, MS
 
DIH Emerging Entrepreneur Award
The Diversity Innovation Hub – Emerging Entrepreneur Award aims to recognize an upcoming local New Yorker innovator/entrepreneur who launched in the last year impacting in the Mount Sinai Community.
Winner: Kaushik Viswanathan, CEO & Co-Founder, RiskAverse
 
DIH Innovators Award
The Diversity Innovation Hub – Innovator Prize aims to recognize an innovator/entrepreneur who launched or created a meaningful innovation that addressed social determinants of health for the Mount Sinai Community.
Winner: Kimberly Wilson, JD, Founder & CEO, HUED
 
DIH Fellows Award
The Diversity Innovation Hub – Fellows Award recognizes one DIH Fellow based on the impact they create through their Scholarly Year products.
Winner: Krsna Kothari
 
THRIVE Fellowship Award
THRIVE is Mount Sinai’s Targeted Healthcare Innovation Fellowship, a 6-month program for participants from diverse professional backgrounds to develop technology-driven healthcare innovations.
Winner: SpineNova – Bahie Ezzat, Bergan Babrowicz, Frederika Rentzeperis, Sujay Ratna, and Gael Cruanes (Mentor: Tanvir Choudhri, MD)
Description: CordGuard, an innovative device developed for neurosurgeons, prevents spinal cord compression in posterior cervical decompression and fusion surgeries. CordGuard reduces postoperative symptoms and trauma risk in patients by mimicking spinal anatomy and seamless surgical integration.
Winner: NexTrac – Lyon Lee, BS, Daniel Kwon, BS, Robert Wiener, PhD, and Dillan Villavisanis, MD (Mentors: Tanvir Choudhri, MD and Joseph Borrello, PhD)
Description: NexTrac is developing an AI camera system for minimally invasive spine surgeries. NexTrac aims to eliminate tool obstructions, offer real-time surgical guidance, and improve surgical outcomes with deep-learning powered devices.
Winner: SpineSight – Alexander Zhou, Jacob Desman, Peter Campbell, and Yash Lahoti (Mentor: Tanvir Choudhri, MD)
Description: Using machine learning to enhance and standardize diagnosis of spinal cord disease
Winner: EndoCare – Adriana Sistig, MS, Jacqueline Slobin, BA, Riya Murty Bandanapudi, MBBS, Vibhor Mahajan, MS, MPH (Mentors: Susan Khalil, MD, MS and Ben Fox, MS)
Description: EndoCare is developing a clinical decision support system designed to facilitate detection of early-stage endometriosis to improve patient outcomes and promote healthcare equity.
Winner: Varomics – Ashley Abid, MS, Linh Chu, Nima Assad, and Jenny Rodriguez (Mentor: Miriam Merad, MD, PhD)
Description: Varomics is a genomics-enabled variant analysis platform to improve patient care and recruitment strategies for clinical trials diversity.
 
Trainee Innovation Idea Award
The Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai is committed to nurturing and recognizing innovation among all its trainees. The Trainee Innovation Idea Awards are designed to highlight innovative research ideas from the Mount Sinai trainee communities that could potentially be translated into a marketable product.
 
MD & MD/PhD Students – Co-Winner 1: Ian C. Odland, BS and Tyree D. Williams, M.Eng
Description: We have developed a next-generation steerable screwdriver that offers surgeons precise, distal control of screw delivery allowing screw placement in smaller incisions with less retraction.
MD & MD/PhD Students – Co-Winner 2: Lyon Lee, BS, Daniel Kwon, BS, Robert Wiener, PhD, and Dillan Villavisanis, MD (Mentor: Tanvir Choudhri, MD)
Description: We are currently developing an AI camera system for MITR-based spine surgeries. It eliminates tool obstructions, offers real-time surgical guidance, and enhances precision through live segmentation and stereo vision powered by machine learning.
PhD Students – Co-Winner 1: Ben Fox, MSc (Mentors: Girish Nadkarni, MD, MPH and Ankit Parekh, PhD)
Description: Using raw polysomnography sensor data, we build foundational transformer models to zero-shot predict key sleep outcomes to both improve the diagnosis and prognosis of sleep related disorders and develop insight into the importance of individual sensors for at home monitoring.
PhD Students – Co-Winner 2: Iden Sapse (Mentor: Goran Bajic, PhD)
Description: Development of the GPI-Anchor as a genetically encoded, highly modular platform for the appendage of therapeutically-relevant proteins to LNPs, with a primary focus on the problem of targeted administration to antigenically defined dell types.
Postdoctoral Fellows: Md Kabir, PhD
Description: Md Kabir is developing a novel Acetylation Targeting Chimera (AceTAC) strategy to functionally activate the p53 tumor suppressor protein via acetylation. Pharmacologic activation of tumor-suppressor proteins for cancer treatment remains a major challenge in the field. Thus, Md developed a first-in-class p53Y220C AceTAC, MS78, which led to effective p53Y220C acetylation in cells. Moreover, MS78 potently suppressed proliferation of cancer cells harboring Y220C mutation compared to parent stabilizer with minimal off-target toxicity. Altogether, the AceTAC strategy could provide a generalizable platform for functionally activating tumor suppressors via acetylation.
Housestaff: Eduard I. Drizik, MD, MS (Team: Douglas M. Mansell, PhD, Abhilasha Sinha, PhD, Charles A. Powell, MD, MBA, and Hideo Watanabe, MD, PhD)
Description: Using slow progression lung cancer mouse model, we will elucidate early copy number alterations using spatial RNA-seq and single cell DNA-seq to simulate use of spatial DNA-seq to understand initial carcinogenic events to aid diagnosis of lung cancer.
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