Mount Sinai Establishes Eye and Vision Research Institute
The Mount Sinai Health System has announced the creation of the Mount Sinai/New York Eye and Ear (NYEE) Eye and Vision Research Institute. The Institute is the first of its kind in the New York City metropolitan region, and will expand Mount Sinai’s eye and vision research portfolio.
Bringing together eye and vision researchers from The Mount Sinai Hospital and NYEE, the new Institute will foster collaborations between faculty at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai (ISMMS) and academic departments throughout the Mount Sinai Health System to maximize their collective efforts.
The Mount Sinai/NYEE Eye and Vision Research Institute will combine expertise from other fields of medicine to find breakthrough treatments and cures for eye conditions and disease, and will further research that can preserve vision and/or reverse blindness. Planned areas of research expansion include stem cell and regenerative biology of the visual system, ocular imaging, and genetics and genomics of eye disease. Investigators from other Mount Sinai institutes such as The Friedman Brain Institute, the Icahn Institute for Genomics and Multiscale Biology, and The Black Family Stem Cell Institute will provide critical insights to catalyze these advancements.
“New York Eye and Ear Infirmary of Mount Sinai is on the forefront of clinical research in ophthalmology, and the creation of this Institute will further advance eye and vision research by capitalizing on Mount Sinai’s basic science and translational research strengths,” said James C. Tsai, MD, MBA, Delafield-Rodgers Professor and System Chair, Department of Ophthalmology, Mount Sinai Health System, and President, NYEE. “We look forward to collaborating with these institutes and benefiting from the expertise of their faculty to leverage our own strengths since not all research breakthroughs in vision science emanate from ophthalmology alone.”
Douglas A. Jabs, MD, MBA, Professor of Ophthalmology and Medicine, Icahn School of Medicine of Mount Sinai, and Director, Uveitis Division, The Mount Sinai Hospital, is the inaugural Director of the Institute. An internationally recognized clinician-scientist, Dr. Jabs has held continuous National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding for more than 30 years. His personal research portfolio includes more than 20 years of bench immunology research, translational research in the area of viral drug resistance, and clinical research in the fields of AIDS, cytomegalovirus retinitis, and uveitis. Dr. Jabs has chaired numerous NIH-funded, multicenter, national and international clinical trials, including the Multicenter Uveitis Steroid Treatment (MUST) Trial and the Studies of the Ocular Complications of AIDS (SOCA), and is an internationally recognized expert in research methodology. He has authored over 300 original articles and 48 book chapters.
“The creation of this Institute will enable us to build on the strengths of NYEE in clinical care and research, the Mount Sinai Department of Ophthalmology in vision research, and the Icahn School of Medicine in basic and translational research to develop a world-class program dedicated to cutting-edge discovery and the integration of research with clinical care,” said Dr. Jabs. “We know that when clinicians and researchers work together on clinical problems, the result is breakthroughs that advance the care of patients with eye disease, and that is our goal.”
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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