Welcome From the Dean

IT WAS AN extraordinary year of achievements, and I am delighted to share the many ways our Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences faculty, trainees, and students have excelled.

We are attracting the most accomplished students, eager to be mentored by some of the nation’s most outstanding scientists and educators—we now have 27 faculty who are members of the National Academy of Medicine and/or National Academy of Sciences.

During the 2021-2022 academic year, we trained 264 PhD candidates, 98 MD/PhD candidates, 382 master’s candidates, and 535 postdocs.The 63 PhD students who graduated in 2022 produced 900 publications (journal articles, preprints, and abstracts) and one student was a co-author on more than 70 papers on SARS-CoV-2, an area where our faculty continue to drive groundbreaking science. Our nine master’s programs graduated 220 students, including the Master of Science in Epidemiology, which graduated its first class.

Powered by significant investments over the last several years, we are assured that our new multidisciplinary training area in the Biomedical Sciences PhD program—Artificial Intelligence and Emerging Technologies (AIET) in Medicine, which enrolled its first cohorts in Fall 2022—will leverage Mount Sinai’s long-established excellence in digital health innovation and biomedical engineering and provide a foundational education in the use of information systems.

We have also strategically strengthened our opportunities in research and training in mass spectrometry-based proteomics, protein design, antibody therapeutics, and translational sciences—as highlighted in this report.

Read on to also learn about the Wellcome Leap Multi-Channel Psych Program grants awarded to two teams of investigators to develop an integrated model of anhedonic depression to identify biologically effective treatments; three trailblazing alumni of our PhD, MD/PhD, and Master of Science in Public Health programs; an exceptional postdoc working in the lab of Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator Ian S. Maze, PhD; a PhD student studying in the lab of world-renowned microbiologist Adolfo García-Sastre, PhD; an MD/PhD student heralded for her national efforts to stop Asian hate; and our first cohorts enrolled in the AIET concentration.

I want to call attention to two efforts that also speak to the core of who we are as a graduate school, the larger Mount Sinai Health System, and as citizens of the world.

In the summer of 2022, our ongoing SURP4US program was re-energized by the curiosity and smarts of 15 underrepresented college scholars who received rigorous in-person learning experiences through a most dedicated group of volunteer faculty, postdocs, and graduate students.

Also in the summer of 2022, we launched a substantive effort in partnership with Icahn Mount Sinai’s Center for Anti-racism in Practice to continue efforts to dismantle racism and bias within the research and learning environment.

In the new year, we will continue to challenge ourselves and our institution to reach new educational and scientific milestones. This is who we are.

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Marta Filizola, PhD

Marta Filizola, PhD

Dean of the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, the Sharon & Frederick A. Klingenstein/Nathan G. Kase, MD Professor of Pharmacological Sciences, Professor of Neuroscience, and Professor of Artificial Intelligence and Human Health