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Newswise — Mount Sinai Recruits Adam Margolin to Lead New $200M Program to Accelerate Data Driven Precision Medicine
Launches Newly Renamed Institute for Data Science and Genomic Technology
(New York, NY – November 1, 2018) — Adam Margolin, PhD, an internationally renowned computational biologist, has been recruited by the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai to lead a bold new initiative designed to radically accelerate the pace of therapeutic discovery through integration of large-scale data analysis and advanced genomic technologies.
Dr. Margolin has been named Professor and Chair of the Department of Genetics and Genomic Sciences and Senior Associate Dean of Precision Medicine. He will also lead Mount Sinai’s Icahn Institute, which has been renamed the Icahn Institute for Data Science and Genomic Technology. He will lead the new enterprise-wide program that focuses on harnessing huge molecular datasets to predict new therapies for complex diseases by using advanced biotechnologies to rapidly tailor novel therapies to each patient faster than has ever been possible.
"By fundamentally changing the understanding of complex diseases, we can customize diagnosis, prevention, and treatment to individual patients," says Dr. Margolin. "We will bring together the top data scientists, genomic technology innovators, and disease experts who will work side by side every day to understand the molecular causes of complex diseases, rapidly test new therapies derived from these insights, and bring these therapies to patients faster than ever before.”
Over the next 10 years, Mount Sinai plans to recruit 30 new faculty members at the cutting edge of data science and genomic technology in addition to 25 data scientists to lead projects aimed at interpreting large-scale biomolecular data; launch cross-institutional, cross-disciplinary projects to discover new precision therapies in core disease areas; build computational infrastructure to enable integration and analysis of data throughout the Mount Sinai health system and beyond; build technology platforms to implement and develop cutting edge molecular profiling and therapeutic testing technologies; and launch educational programs to train top PhD and Masters students in biomedical data science.
“We are creating a program built for the way science will be done in the future. The traditional academic model, organized around siloed individual labs, cannot achieve the speed, agility, and integration we need to advance biomedical research of today. Our program will be built from the outset to enable world class data scientists, technology innovators, and disease experts to advance large-scale team-oriented goals that could not be achieved in a more traditional model.”
Dr. Margolin is a recognized leader in developing machine-learning algorithms to analyze large-scale datasets, to predict therapies specific to an individual patient, and to infer the key cellular processes that underlie cancer drug susceptibility and other clinically relevant phenotypes. He is a passionate advocate of highly collaborative team-based research, and has developed software systems to enable collaborative analysis for several of the largest national and international projects in cancer, genomics, cancer immunotherapy, stem cell research, and pediatric diseases.
"With Adam Margolin at the helm, Mount Sinai is committed to recruiting world-class data scientists—the same type of people who would otherwise be working in hedge funds or big tech start-ups—who can apply those skills to analyzing enormous amounts of data on patients,” said Dennis S. Charney, MD, Anne and Joel Ehrenkranz Dean of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and President for Academic Affairs of the Mount Sinai Health System. “We are committed to pursuing bold new initiatives that enable the best people to work together to unlock insights from massive datasets that will revolutionize our ability to treat a multitude of diseases.”
With the new program, Mount Sinai is redoubling its commitment to make big data a centerpiece of its institutional strategy. Dr. Margolin will inherit the positions previously held by Eric Schadt, PhD, who was recruited in 2011 to lead Mount Sinai’s programs in data science and genomics. Dr. Schadt is currently Dean of Precision Medicine and Professor of Genetics and Genomic Sciences at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, and founder and CEO of Sema4, a molecular testing company that was spun out of Mount Sinai. Under Dr. Schadt’s leadership: Mount Sinai grew the genetics department to rise within the top 5 nationally in NIH funding for research; built the largest supercomputing facility of any academic medical center in the United States; was named by Fast Company among the top 10 most innovative organizations in the world in Data Science; and developed a state-of-the-art genomic technology development program.
Dr. Margolin joins Mount Sinai from Oregon Health & Science University, where he was the Director of Computational Biology and Professor of Biomedical Engineering. Previously, Dr. Margolin was the Director of Computational Biology at Sage Bionetworks in Seattle. He earned his PhD in biomedical informatics from Columbia University.
About the Mount Sinai Health System
The Mount Sinai Health System is New York City’s largest integrated delivery system encompassing seven hospital campuses, a leading medical school, and a vast network of ambulatory practices throughout the greater New York region. Mount Sinai’s vision is to produce the safest care, the highest quality, the highest satisfaction, the best access and the best value of any health system in the nation. The System includes approximately 6,600 primary and specialty care physicians; 11 joint-venture ambulatory surgery centers; more than 140 ambulatory practices throughout the five boroughs of New York City, Westchester, Long Island, and Florida; and 31 affiliated community health centers. The Icahn School of Medicine is one of three medical schools that have earned distinction by multiple indicators: ranked in the top 20 by U.S. News & World Report’s “Best Medical Schools”, aligned with a U.S. News & World Report’s “Honor Roll” Hospital, it is ranked as a leading medical school for National Institutes of Health funding, and among the top 10 most innovative research institutions as ranked by the journal Nature in its Nature Innovation Index. This reflects a special level of excellence in education, clinical practice, and research. The Mount Sinai Hospital is ranked No. 18 on U.S. News & World Report’s “Honor Roll” of top U.S. hospitals; it is one of the nation’s top 20 hospitals in Cardiology/Heart Surgery, Gastroenterology/GI Surgery, Geriatrics, Nephrology, and Neurology/Neurosurgery, and in the top 50 in six other specialties in the 2018-2019 “Best Hospitals” issue. Mount Sinai’s Kravis Children’s Hospital also is ranked nationally in five out of ten pediatric specialties by U.S. News & World Report. The New York Eye and Ear Infirmary of Mount Sinai is ranked 11th nationally for Ophthalmology and 44th for Ear, Nose, and Throat, while Mount Sinai Beth Israel, Mount Sinai St. Luke’s and Mount Sinai West are ranked regionally. For more information, visit http://www.mountsinai.org/, or find Mount Sinai on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.
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