• Press Release

Mount Sinai to Lead Discussions on Transgender Health, Psychedelic Therapeutics and Long COVID at the 2022 Aspen Ideas: Health and Aspen Ideas Festival

Will also address breakthrough therapies, technology and data innovation, and reducing health care costs

  • New York, NY
  • (June 16, 2022)

Mount Sinai experts will lead discussions on the quest for breakthrough therapies, improving patient care and reducing costs, and providing equitable care to transgender and gender non-binary individuals at this year’s Aspen Ideas: Health and Aspen Ideas Festival from Wednesday, June 22, to Friday, July 1, in Aspen, Colorado.

“We are proud and pleased to once again participate in the Aspen Ideas Festival where innovation, ideas, and medicine advance health, societal, and systematic changes for the global community,” said Kenneth L. Davis, MD, Chief Executive Officer of Mount Sinai Health System. “The exchange of bold ideas combined with a relentless pursuit of knowledge, understanding, and answers to the world’s most complex problems is one of many ways we are finding a way to a healthier world for everyone.”

This year’s Aspen Ideas Festival will be in person and will feature a range of experts who will share their ideas and insight. Built around festival themes that include disruption, influence, security, heat, trust, and connection, Mount Sinai’s conversations will broaden the understanding of health, science, and innovative thinkers who are moving medicine forward for patients everywhere. Mount Sinai will be a Presenting Sponsor at each festival and is also celebrating its 10th anniversary of partnership with the Aspen Institute.

Dr. Davis will lead a conversation on innovations in health care delivery and patient care, and broad solutions to tackle health care affordability, on Sunday, June 26, at 3:15 pm in the McNulty Ballroom in the Doerr-Hosier Center. He will be joined by Robert Fields, MD, Executive Vice President and Chief Population Health Officer at Mount Sinai, and Sidney Hankerson, MD, MBA, Vice Chair of Community Engagement in the Department of Psychiatry and Director of Mental Health Equity for the Institute for Health Equity Research at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.

During a breakfast discussion, Dr. Davis; Zahi Fayad, PhD, Director of Mount Sinai’s Biomedical Engineering and Imaging Institute; and Thomas Fuchs, DrSc, Co-Director of the Hasso Plattner Institute for Digital Health at Mount Sinai, will talk about powering medicine with technology and data science. They will answer questions about how to use data to solve the complex medical issues of today and tomorrow. This breakfast will take place on Monday, June 27, at 7:45 am at Plato’s Restaurant at Aspen Meadows. Advance RSVP is required as seating is limited.

Renowned journalist Katie Couric will host Mount Sinai’s lunch conversation on transgender health and broadening access, a topic that has been highly politicized. Ms. Couric will interview Joshua Safer, MD, Executive Director of the Mount Sinai Center for Transgender Medicine and Surgery, and surgeon Marci Bowers, MD, about transgender health and gender-affirming care. This lunch will take place on Monday, June 27 at 11:45 am at the Albright Pavilion at Aspen Meadows. Advance RSVP is required as seating is limited.

Rachel Yehuda, PhD, Director of Mount Sinai’s Center for Psychedelic Psychotherapy and Trauma Research, will participate in a discussion about research on psychedelic therapy for psychiatric disorders such as depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, and addiction. The session, titled “Visionary Approaches: Psychedelics as Therapy,” will be held on Thursday, June 23, at 8 pm in the Hotel Jerome Ballroom in Aspen, available both to Festival passholders and the public as ticketed guests.

Aspen Ideas: Health will feature David Putrino, PhD, Director of Rehabilitation Innovation at the Mount Sinai Health System, in an intimate explainer session about long COVID at 9 am on Thursday, June 23, at the East Lawn Tent.

Mount Sinai will also host a panel in the East Lawn Tent titled “The Quest for Breakthrough Therapies,” featuring Brian Brown, PhD, Director of the Icahn Genomics Institute; Helen Mayberg, MD, Founding Director of the Nash Family Center for Advanced Circuit Therapeutics at Icahn Mount Sinai; and Peter Palese, PhD, Chair of Microbiology at Icahn Mount Sinai. This session will take place on Thursday, June 23, at 11:10 am.

Mount Sinai clinicians will be onsite to provide complimentary skin screenings and body scans with health and risk assessments. Primary care physicians will also be available live in Mount Sinai’s virtual studio for conversations about health topics. All of these offerings will be held at the Mount Sinai Health Experience, located in the Grove at Aspen Meadows. Sessions can be reserved in advance at 646-856-4687 or aspen@mountsinai.org.

For more information about Mount Sinai’s speakers, events, and activities at the Aspen Ideas: Health and Aspen Ideas Festival, visit our website.


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.