Real, Smart People

Miriam Merad, MD, PhD, is an evangelist for the immune system. “What's my mission in life? To reveal the power of the immune system in treating most human diseases,” she says on Real, Smart People. An internationally acclaimed physician-scientist, Dr. Merad is also passionate about inspiring new generations of scientists. “For people to follow you, you have to show them that this is exciting,” she says. In this audio portrait, Dr. Merad talks about the promise of immunotherapy and the importance of paying it forward.

Miriam Merad, MD, PhD, is Director of the Precision Immunology Institute at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and Director of the Mount Sinai Human Immune Monitoring Center.

Links:

• Precision Immunology Institute at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai (PrIISM)
• Mount Sinai Human Immune Monitoring Center (HIMC)
• Follow Dr. Merad on Twitter 
• Follow PrIISM on Twitter

Music by Blue Dot Sessions

Bevin Cohen, PhD, MS, MPH, RN, is Director of Research and Evidence-Based Practice at The Mount Sinai Hospital

Links:

• Nursing at Mount Sinai
• Phillips School of Nursing at Mount Sinai
• Mount Sinai Health System Celebrates Nurses Week

Jess Ting, MD, has learned to thrive without road maps. As a kid, he taught himself to play the upright bass and went on to study at Juilliard. Now he’s blazing trails in transgender medicine and surgery. “It’s a great field because it’s so young,” Dr. Ting says. “There’s lots of room to innovate.” Among Dr. Ting’s innovations—a completely new approach to vaginoplasty, called the Peritoneum Vaginoplasty. In this audio portrait, Dr. Ting talks about how innovation happens and what he’s learned from his transgender patients.

Dr. Ting is Director of Surgery at the Mount Sinai Center for Transgender Medicine and Surgery.

For more Real, Smart People, visit our website.

Links:

• Center for Transgender Medicine and Surgery
• LGBT Health at Mount Sinai
• Transgender and Gender Non-Binary Community Resources in NYC

Neurosurgeon Joshua Bederson, MD, has performed more than 4,000 neurosurgeries at Mount Sinai. In this audio profile, he talks about the beauty of the brain and the connection between neurosurgery and his other passion: sculpting. Dr. Bederson is  Leonard I. Malis, MD / Corinne and Joseph Graber Professor of Neurosurgery and System Chair for the Department of Neurosurgery at Mount Sinai Health System.

Links

• Dr. Bederson's official bio
• Department of Neurosurgery at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
• Neurosurgery Care at Mount Sinai
• Watch Dr. Bederson at work in his studio and in the operating room
• "What it takes to be a great neurosurgeon" (an essay about Dr. Bederson)

Early in the pandemic, when little was known about the SARS-CoV-2 virus, neuropathologist Mary Fowkes, MD, PhD, volunteered to perform autopsies on COVID-19 victims. Wearing a full-body protective suit and often working alone, she painstakingly examined the virus’s impact on the brain. What she and her team found shocked her—significant blood clots in the brain and vital organs. The discovery led to the increased use of blood thinners in COVID-19 patients. In this episode, Dr. Fowkes tells her COVID-19 story and explains why autopsies are so important.

Dr. Fowkes died on Nov. 15, 2020 of an acute heart attack. An autopsy did not reveal the presence of COVID-19.

Links

• Mount Sinai Analysis of COVID-19 Autopsies Reveals Many Details About This Disease 
• Pathology Clinical Services
• Neuropathology Fellowship at The Mount Sinai Hospital
• Dr. Fowkes' obituary in the New York Times and The Lancet

First they said it wasn't important to study opioid addiction. Then they said it wasn't possible to do it her way. Hear how Yasmin Hurd, PhD, learned to tune out the noise and take control.

Links:

• Addiction Institute at Mount Sinai - https://bit.ly/2Ic9vfB
• Hurd Laboratory - http://labs.neuroscience.mssm.edu/project/hurd-lab/
• "Addressing racism and disparities in the biomedical sciences" (article in Nature Human Behavior) - https://go.nature.com/3osFyau

Adolfo is on a mission with millions of lives at stake.

Bite-sized portraits of the most innovative minds in medicine. A new podcast from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.