University of Brescia and Mount Sinai Expand Cooperation with First Internationalization Summit
Faculty from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai joined colleagues from around the world at the University of Brescia in Italy for a recent conference on the internationalization of education and research. The 2016 Brescia Internationalization Summit, held on July 13, 2016, included a roundtable discussion where participants explored the university's role in creating a new generation of globally minded professionals for the advancement of science.
The special relationship between the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and the University of Brescia was formed in 2013 to facilitate international scientific collaboration with special emphasis on the prevention of acute and chronic diseases.
Participating Mount Sinai faculty included Robert Wright, MD, MPH, Ethel H. Wise Professor and Chair, Department of Environmental Medicine and Public Health, and Professor of Pediatrics, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai; Roberto Lucchini, MD, Director, Division of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, Department of Environmental Medicine and Public Health; Manish Arora, PhD, BDS, MPH, Director of Exposure Biology at the Senator Frank Lautenberg Environmental Health Sciences Laboratory, Department of Environmental Medicine and Public Health, and Avi Reichenberg, PhD, Professor of Psychiatry, Icahn School of Medicine.
The summit also included discussions highlighting the benefits of international education, policies related to credentialing for visiting academics, and the importance of providing comprehensive logistical support and hospitality for visitors. Participants agreed that healthy competition between individual universities must be matched by effective collaboration between the different networks to enable the whole system to be competitive.
“Internationalization means, above all, a new mindset and opening to the world system and the global dimension,” said Sergio Pecorelli ,MD, Chancellor of the University of Brescia. “This necessary renewal, which recalls the original vocation of European universities at the end of the Middle Ages, aims to educate citizens who are able to develop higher awareness and are better prepared and ready to face the professional and cultural challenges of the Future Society.”
“Internationalization in higher education has become a top priority for universities everywhere,” said Dr. Lucchini, who holds faculty positions at both the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and the University of Brescia. “Developing effective programs that facilitate collaboration between researchers at institutions halfway around the world is redefining how we teach and do research.”
- Dr. Lucchini hosted a tour and meeting at Mount Sinai with Italian Minister of Health Beatrice Lorenzin and Chancellor Pecorelli (New York, June 2014).
- Collaborative exchanges between Icahn School of Medicine and University of Brescia faculty and medical residents in occupational and environmental health (ongoing), rehabilitation and physiotherapy (2014), neuroanesthesia and neurointensive care (2014), hematology (2015), cardiology (2015), geriatrics (2015-16), and head and neck surgery (2016).
- The 2016 Brescia Conference – first Internationalization Summit (Italy, July 13, 2016)
Other institutions represented at the conference included the University of Trento, University of Sydney, INEFC (Barcelona), University of Valencia, GUtech (Oman), King’s College (London), University of California (Irvine, Santa Cruz), Burapha University (Bangkok) and Rutgers University (New Jersey).
Following the conference, participants joined a multidisciplinary workshop on the need for prevention in early life to ensure healthy development and aging. Topics addressed included:
- Importance of the first 1,000 days paradigm (Sergio Pecorelli, Chancellor, University of Brescia)
- Sensitive exposure windows for early life toxicity (Robert Wright, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
- Shed teeth assessment as new biomarkers (Manish Arora, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai)
- Environmental and genetic determinants of developmental disorders (Avi Reichenberg, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai)
- Visual assessment in newborns as a tool for early neurodevelopmental diagnosis (Elisa Fazzi, University of Brescia)
- Environmental health strategy of the Italian Ministry of Health (Ranieri Guerra, Italian Ministry of Health)
- From neurodevelopment to neurodegeneration in the province of Brescia (Roberto Lucchini, University of Brescia, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
About University of Brescia, Italy
The University of Brescia is an Italian public University that works in the following four macro areas: Medicine, Engineering, Economics and Law. The eight departments represent the disciplines that build the cultural fundamentals of the macro areas and host 600 professors and researchers, as well as a large group of post-doctoral researchers. There are approximately 15,000 undergraduate and Master Degree students, PhD, and medical residents. The administrative and research structure contains 500 technical and administrative professionals. Health&Wealth is the new thematic project the University of Brescia. It is grounded in new knowledge, research, culture, health, wellbeing, technology and progress. Health&Wealth is a project aimed at the transformation of both our way of living and of thinking, such that economic and industrial systems can thrive while respecting culture, people, and the environment.
About the Mount Sinai Health System
Mount Sinai Health System is one of the largest academic medical systems in the New York metro area, with more than 43,000 employees working across eight hospitals, over 400 outpatient practices, nearly 300 labs, a school of nursing, and a leading school of medicine and graduate education. Mount Sinai advances health for all people, everywhere, by taking on the most complex health care challenges of our time — discovering and applying new scientific learning and knowledge; developing safer, more effective treatments; educating the next generation of medical leaders and innovators; and supporting local communities by delivering high-quality care to all who need it.
Through the integration of its hospitals, labs, and schools, Mount Sinai offers comprehensive health care solutions from birth through geriatrics, leveraging innovative approaches such as artificial intelligence and informatics while keeping patients’ medical and emotional needs at the center of all treatment. The Health System includes approximately 7,300 primary and specialty care physicians; 13 joint-venture outpatient surgery centers throughout the five boroughs of New York City, Westchester, Long Island, and Florida; and more than 30 affiliated community health centers. We are consistently ranked by U.S. News & World Report's Best Hospitals, receiving high "Honor Roll" status, and are highly ranked: No. 1 in Geriatrics and top 20 in Cardiology/Heart Surgery, Diabetes/Endocrinology, Gastroenterology/GI Surgery, Neurology/Neurosurgery, Orthopedics, Pulmonology/Lung Surgery, Rehabilitation, and Urology. New York Eye and Ear Infirmary of Mount Sinai is ranked No. 12 in Ophthalmology. U.S. News & World Report’s “Best Children’s Hospitals” ranks Mount Sinai Kravis Children's Hospital among the country’s best in several pediatric specialties.
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