• Press Release

Mount Sinai Neuroscience Department Ranked No. 1 in Nation in NIH Funding

Seven Other Departments Ranked Among Top 10 Nationally

  • New York, NY
  • (February 20, 2019)

The Nash Family Department of Neuroscience at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai received the most biomedical research funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) of any medical school neuroscience department in the nation in 2018, according to data compiled and released by the Blue Ridge Institute for Medical Research (BRIMR). 

The Neuroscience Department’s No. 1 ranking reflects $31.2 million in awards received during the NIH’s 2018 fiscal year and includes 41 awards for which department faculty members are Principal Investigators. 

“We are thrilled by this outstanding achievement, which is a milestone for the neuroscience community at Mount Sinai. This is a testament to the outstanding quality of our faculty, postdoctoral fellows, graduate students, and staff, and reflects the cutting-edge research conducted in our laboratories,” says Paul J. Kenny, PhD, Chair of the Department. “These highly competitive funds enable Mount Sinai researchers to pursue initiatives that advance understanding of human health and disease and to swiftly develop treatments and technologies that will change the lives of patients worldwide.”

Each year, Blue Ridge releases its analysis of NIH funding, ranking individual departments by total award dollars.  Academic and clinical fields where Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai departments ranked among the top 10 nationally among their peers were Microbiology (No. 3), Emergency Medicine (No. 4), Pharmacology (No. 4), Genetics (No. 5), Anatomy/Cell Biology (No. 6), Psychiatry (No. 6), and Neurology (No. 10). Altogether, these seven disciplines and Neuroscience at Mount Sinai were awarded $184 million from the NIH in 2018.

“Through a large, multidisciplinary effort that involves numerous basic science and clinical departments, we have made impressive strides in understanding how the nervous system functions under normal conditions and malfunctions in disease, making us uniquely poised to translate these advances into fundamentally new and improved treatments for some of the world’s most devastating disorders,” says Eric J. Nestler, MD, PhD, Nash Family Professor of Neuroscience, Director of The Friedman Brain Institute, and Dean for Academic and Scientific Affairs at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.


About the Mount Sinai Health System

Mount Sinai Health System is one of the nation’s leading integrated academic health systems and one of the largest in the New York metropolitan area. Its comprehensive system includes seven hospitals, more than 400 outpatient practices, over 600 research and clinical laboratories, the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, and the Mount Sinai Phillips School of Nursing. Together, the Health System comprises approximately 48,000 employees, more than 9,000 physicians, and 8,600 nurses.

As a leading learning health system, Mount Sinai combines clinical expertise with scientific discovery to improve patient care while training the next generation of health care and biomedical leaders. The Health System provides care across every stage of life, from prenatal care through geriatrics, while advancing personalized medicine through artificial intelligence, data science, and biomedical research.

Mount Sinai is consistently recognized among the nation’s leading academic health systems for patient care, research, and education. The Mount Sinai Hospital is ranked No. 1 in New York by Newsweek and No. 5 on the magazine’s World’s Best Hospitals list. The Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai ranks No. 11 among U.S. medical schools and No. 1 among freestanding medical schools for National Institutes of Health funding, reflecting the strength of its scientific enterprise and leadership in biomedical research.