Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai

The Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai (ISMMS or Mount Sinai), formerly the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, is a private medical school in New York City, New York, United States. The school is the academic teaching arm of the Mount Sinai Health System, which manages seven hospital campuses in the New York metropolitan area, including Mount Sinai Hospital and the New York Eye and Ear Infirmary. As of 2025, Eric J. Nestler is the dean of the Icahn School of Medicine, and Dr. Brendan Carr serves as the President and & CEO.

Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai

Former names	Mount Sinai School of Medicine (1968 - 2012)
Type	Private medical school
Established	1963 (1963)
Parent institution	Mount Sinai Health System
Endowment	$866 million (2023)
Dean	Eric J. Nestler, Anne and Joel Ehrenkranz Dean of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
CEO, Mount Sinai Health System	Brendan Carr
Academic staff	4,560+
Students	530+ MD students 340+ PhD students 90+ MD/PhD students
Location	New York City , New York , United States
Campus	Urban
Website	icahn.mssm.edu

The School is a teaching hospital first conceived in 1958. Due to simultaneous expansion initiatives at the hospital, classes did not begin until 1968. Its initial name, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, was changed to The Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in 2012, after a $200 million grant from businessman Carl Icahn.

Academics programs include MD, PhD and dual degrees, and its Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences offers 13 degree-granting programs, conducts basic and translational research, and trains postdoctoral research fellows. Its campus is located on Manhattan's Upper East Side, between Fifth and Madison Avenues, stretching from East 98th Street to East 102nd Street.

History

As Mount Sinai School of Medicine

The first official proposal to establish a medical school at Mount Sinai was made to the hospital's trustees in January 1958. The school contemplated a new kind of medical institution encompassing a medical school supported by a teaching hospital. It would include an undergraduate school representing allied health fields, a graduate school of biological sciences, and a graduate school of physical sciences.

This philosophy was defined by Hans Popper, Horace Hodes, Alexander Gutman, Paul Klemperer, George Baehr, Gustave L. Levy, and Alfred Stern, among others. Milton Steinbach was the school's first president.

Classes at Mount Sinai School of Medicine began in 1968, and the school soon became known as one of the leading medical schools in the U.S., as the hospital gained recognition for its laboratories, advances in patient care and the discovery of diseases. The City University of New York granted Mount Sinai's degrees.

The school expanded programs and added a range of dedicated departments in the subsequent decades. The Edith J. Baerwald Professor of Community Medicine and Social Work (1969); the first Department of Neoplastic Diseases in an American medical school (1973); and the first Department of Geriatrics and Adult Development (1982).

In the 1990s, it created the Cultural Diversity in Medicine Program focused on healthcare availability to diverse patient populations. It was the second institution in the New York Metropolitan area to create an Academic Department of Emergency Medicine (1994), it started the Institute for Gene Therapy and Molecular Medicine (1996), and an Office of Multi-cultural and Community Affairs to add diversity to the demographic composition of the school (1998). In collaboration with the Pew Charitable Trust, the Center for Children's Health and the Environment was formed to examine links between childhood illnesses and toxic pollutants (1999).

Mount Sinai's degrees were granted by City University of New York before 1999, when Mount Sinai changed university affiliations from City University to New York University but without merging its operations with the New York University School of Medicine. This affiliation change took place as part of the merger in 1998 of Mount Sinai and NYU medical centers to create the Mount Sinai–NYU Medical Center and Health System. In 2003, the partnership between the two dissolved.

In 2007, Mount Sinai Medical Center's boards of trustees approved the termination of the academic affiliation between Mount Sinai and NYU and it was officially terminated in 2008. In 2010, Mount Sinai was accredited by the Middle States Commission on Higher Education and became an independent degree-granting institution.

As Icahn School of Medicine

On November 14, 2012, it was announced that Mount Sinai School of Medicine would be renamed Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, following a US$200 million gift from New York businessman and philanthropist Carl Icahn.

Academics

Icahn Medical Institute at ISMMS, built in 1997 and designed by Davis Brody Bond

The Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai offers MDs, and graduate studies through its Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences. Doctoral offerings include PhD programs in Biomedical Sciences, Neuroscience, Clinical Research, and Health Sciences Engineering, along with an NIH-funded MD–PhD program; master's programs include Biomedical Science, Public Health, Clinical Research, and Health Administration.

As of the 2024–25 academic year, 1,261 students were enrolled across the MD, PhD, MD–PhD, and master's tracks; the school also supported 565 postdoctoral research fellows and more than 2,700 residents and fellows in 150+ GME programs affiliated with the Mount Sinai Health System.

Mount Sinai's medical curriculum (known as the ASCEND curriculum) has been recently updated, like many medical schools in the United States: the first three semesters of study are confined to the medical sciences, the succeeding 5 semesters to the study of clinical sciences. The preclinical curriculum is strictly pass/fail; the clinical years feature clinical rotations at The Mount Sinai Hospital and Elmhurst Hospital Center, a major level 1 trauma center and safety-net hospital.

In the 2024–2025 term, the MD program matriculated 119 students from 8,540 applicants.

Admissions

Applicants are required to have a bachelor's degree, a competitive MCAT score, and coursework including biology, physics, English and chemistry. A cumulative GPA above 3.5 is reportedly required. Individual educational programs are accredited through the appropriate bodies, including but not limited to LCME, CEPH, ACCME and ACGME.

College freshmen or sophomores can approach admissions through the FlexMed Program allowing them to apply for early acceptance regardless of prior majors.

Campus

The 18-story Icahn Institute provides 350,000 sf of laboratory, treatment, and education space for the School of Medicine. The campus is located on Manhattan's Upper East Side, between Fifth and Madison Avenues, stretching from East 98th Street to East 102nd Street.

Partnerships and affiliations

In 2015, Mount Sinai announced partnerships with The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia as well as National Jewish Health, the nation's leading institutes for pediatric and pulmonary care respectively, leading to the creation of the Mount Sinai Children's Heart Center and the Mount Sinai – National Jewish Health Respiratory Institute.

COVID response

The first diagnosed COVID-19 case in New York City was by Mount Sinai emergency department's Dr. Angela Chen.

In March 2020, Elmhurst Hospital Center, the public hospital that serves as a major training site for students and residents, was the epicenter of New York City's initial COVID-19 surge, with Mount Sinai house staff and faculty serving as the city's first front-line workers treating patients infected with coronavirus.

Rankings

The Mount Sinai Hospital, the teaching hospital of the school, was listed in the 2025-2026 edition of U.S. News & World Report Honor Roll, with multiple specialties ranked in the top 20 nationwide (cardiology #2, geriatrics #3, gastroenterology #5, cancer #6, urology #6, neurology & neurosurgery #11, orthopedics #14, obstetrics & gynecology #17, diabetes & endocrinology #19).

ISMMS was ranked 11th among medical schools in the U.S. receiving NIH grants in 2024, was awarded $489.8 million funding for their researchers.

Publications

The Annals of Global Health was founded at Mount Sinai in 1934, then known as the Mount Sinai Journal of Medicine. Levy Library Press publishes The Journal of Scientific Innovation in Medicine.

Controversy

In July 2023, the New York County Supreme Court dismissed an April 2019, lawsuit filed against Mount Sinai Health System and several employees of the Icahn School's Arnhold Institute for Global Health. The suit was filed by eight current and former employees for "age and sex discrimination as well as improper reporting to funding agencies, misallocation of funds, failing to obtain Institutional Review Board approval prior to conducting research in violation of Mount Sinai and federal guidelines, and failing properly to adhere to the guidelines of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act or HIPAA." The school denied the claims. More than 150 students at the Icahn School and more than 400 Icahn and Mount Sinai Health System faculty signed letters, addressed to the Board of Trustees, calling on the system to investigate these allegations.

Notable people

Alumni

• Jacob M. Appel, novelist and short story author
• Michael Arthur, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Leeds
• Ambati Balamurali, the youngest person ever to become a doctor, according to Guinness Book of Records
• Inna Berin, obstetrician and gynecologist
• Tamir Bloom, Olympic epee fencer
• Robert Neil Butler, physician, gerontologist, psychiatrist, Pulitzer Prize-winning author and the first director of the National Institute on Aging
• Sophie Clarke, winner of Survivor: South Pacific
• Sandra Fong, Olympic sport shooter
• Jeffrey Scott Flier, dean of the Harvard Medical School  
• Scott L. Friedman, president of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases and pioneering researcher in the field of hepatic fibrosis  
• Rivka Galchen, author
• Steven K. Galson, former Surgeon General of the United States
• Stuart Gitlow, former president of the American Society of Addiction Medicine
• René Kahn, neuropsychiatrist (schizophrenia, neuroimaging), Klingenstein Professor
• Arnold Martin Katz, the first Philip J. and Harriet L. Goodhart Professor of Medicine (Cardiology), and author of Physiology of the Heart
• Jeffrey P. Koplan, former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
• Herminia Palacio, class of 1987, Deputy Mayor of New York City under Bill de Blasio under Bill de Blasio and CEO of the Guttmacher Institute  
• John Rowe, CEO and executive chairman of Aetna from 2000 to 2006
• Charles Schleien, pediatrician and medical researcher
• René Simard, co-author of On Being Human: Where Ethics, Medicine and Spirituality Converge
• Benjamin (Benji) Ungar (born 1986), NCAA-champion fencer

Faculty

• Stuart A. Aaronson, cancer biologist and the Jane B. and Jack R. Aron Professor of Neoplastic Diseases and founding chair of Oncological Sciences.
• Judith Aberg, infectious disease researcher, George Baehr Professor of Clinical Medicine and Dean of System Operations for Clinical Sciences at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.
• David H. Adams, co-creator of the Carpentier-McCarthy-Adams IMR ETlogix Ring and the Carpentier-Edwards Physio II degenerative annuloplasty ring.
• Joshua B. Bederson, professor and chief of neurosurgery and the first neurosurgeon at Mount Sinai to receive an NIH R01 grant as principal investigator.
• Solomon Berson, American physician and scientist whose discoveries, mostly together with Rosalyn Yalow, caused major advances in clinical biochemistry. ISBN 0-309-04198-8
• Deepak L. Bhatt, American interventional cardiologist known for novel clinical trials in cardiovascular prevention, intervention, and heart failure.
• Michael J. Bronson, associate professor of orthopaedic surgery and creator of the Vision Total Hip System.
• Michael L. Brodman, chair and professor of the department of obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive science and pioneer in the field of urogynecology.
• Steven J. Burakoff, cancer specialist, author of both Therapeutic Immunology (2001) and Graft-Vs.-Host Disease: Immunology, Pathophysiology, and Treatment (1990), and former director of Mount Sinai Hospital's Cancer Institute.
• Alain F. Carpentier, hailed by the president of the American Association for Thoracic Surgery as the father of modern mitral valve repair.
• Thomas C. Chalmers, known for his role in the development of the randomized controlled trial and meta-analysis in medical research.
• Dennis S. Charney, former dean of the school and expert in the neurobiology and treatment of mood and anxiety disorders.
• Kenneth L. Davis, chairman and chief executive officer of Mount Sinai Medical Center, who developed what is now one of the most widely used tools to test the efficacy of treatments for Alzheimer's disease.
• Charles DeLisi, former professor and chair of biomathematical sciences and professor of molecular biology who launched the Human Genome Project.
• Burton Drayer, president of Mount Sinai Hospital (2003–2008) and president of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA).
• Marta Filizola, computational biophysicist, dean of the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences.
• Raja M. Flores, thoracic surgeon and chief of the Division of Thoracic Surgery, noted for his role in establishing VATS lobectomy as a standard in the surgical treatment of lung cancer.
• Valentín Fuster, editor-in-chief of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, the only cardiologist to receive the four major research awards from the world's leading cardiovascular organizations, and among the first to demonstrate that acute coronary events arise from small plaques.
• Adolfo García-Sastre, leading virologist known for pioneering plasmid-based reverse-genetics methods for influenza, enabling detailed pathogenesis studies and improved vaccine design.
• Eric M. Genden, professor and chairman of the department of otolaryngology, who performed one of the first successful jaw and laryngotracheal transplants in New York State.
• Isabelle M. Germano, professor of neurosurgery, neurology, and oncological sciences, and a pioneer of image-guided neurosurgery, radiosurgery, and gene therapy for brain tumors.
• Stuart Gitlow, former president of the American Society of Addiction Medicine and executive director of the Annenberg Physician Training Program in Addictive Diseases.
• Alison Goate, director of the Loeb Center for Alzheimer's disease.
• Randall B. Griepp, professor of cardiothoracic surgery who collaborated with Norman Shumway in the development of the first successful heart transplant procedures in the U.S.
• Alon Harris, inventor and co-principal investigator on The Thessaloniki Eye Study, reportedly ophthalmology's largest population-based study.
• Andrew C. Hecht, assistant professor of both orthopaedic surgery and neurosurgery and spine surgical consultant to the New York Jets, the New York Islanders and the New York Dragons.
• Yasmin Hurd, addiction neuroscientist focused on translational neurobiological signatures of opioid addiction and the developmental effects of cannabis.
• Horace Hodes, former Herbert H. Lehman Professor and chairman of pediatrics.
• Ravi Iyengar, professor and founder of the Iyengar Laboratory at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.
• Ethylin Wang Jabs, pediatrician and medical geneticist who identified the first human mutation in a homeobox-containing gene.
• Andy S. Jagoda, professor and chair of the Department of Emergency Medicine and editor or author of 13 books, including The Good Housekeeping Family First Aid Book and the textbook Neurologic Emergencies.
• René Kahn, neuropsychiatrist (schizophrenia, neuroimaging), Klingenstein Professor.
• Amy Kelley, geriatrician and palliative care specialist, deputy director of the National Institute on Aging.
• Annapoorna Kini, associate professor of cardiology and co-author of "Definitions of Acute Coronary Syndromes" in Hurst's The Heart.
• Philip J. Landrigan, advocate of children's health and pioneer in the field of pediatric environmental health.
• Jeffrey Laitman, anatomist and physical anthropologist, distinguished professor of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, professor and director of the Center for Anatomy and Functional Morphology, professor of otolaryngology and professor of medical education.
• Mark G. Lebwohl, the Sol and Clara Kest Professor and chairman of the department of dermatology and author of Treatment of Skin Disease.
• I Michael Leitman, professor of surgery and dean for graduate medical education.
• Ihor R. Lemischka, internationally recognized stem cell biologist and stem cell research advocate.
• Derek LeRoith, chief of the Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes and Bone Disease and director of the Metabolism Institute, and among the first to demonstrate the link between insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1) and cancer.
• Blair Lewis, clinical professor of gastroenterology and instrumental in developing the International Conference of Capsule Endoscopy's consensus statement for clinical application of the capsule endoscopy.
• Barry A. Love, cardiologist specializing in pediatric and congenital heart problems and director of Mount Sinai's Congenital Cardiac Catheterization Laboratory and director of the Pediatric Electrophysiology Service.
• Henry Zvi Lothane, clinical professor, psychiatrist, psychoanalyst, and historian of psychoanalysis.
• Michael L. Marin, professor and chairman of the department of surgery, the first in the U.S. to perform minimally invasive aortic aneurysm surgery and one of the first to perform a successful stent graft procedure.
• Helen Mayberg, psychiatrist/neurologist using deep brain stimulation (DBS) as a treatment approach for severe, treatment-resistant depression.
• Sean E. McCance, clinical professor of orthopaedics and listed as one of the "Best Doctors" for spinal fusion in Money magazine.
• Roxana Mehran, interventional cardiologist.
• Diane E. Meier, geriatrician and MacArthur Fellow, 2008.
• Miriam Merad, cancer immunologist awarded the 2025 Sjöberg Prize by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences for discoveries identifying immune-system targets for new cancer therapies.
• Marek Mlodzik, chair of the Department of Cell, Developmental and Regenerative Biology, professor of oncological sciences and ophthalmology.
• David Muller, co-founder of the Mount Sinai Visiting Doctors Program, the largest academic physician home visiting program in the U.S., and dean for medical education at Icahn School of Medicine.
• Eric J. Nestler, Anne and Joel Ehrenkranz Dean of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, as well as dean for academic and scientific affairs and director of the Friedman Brain Institute.
• Michael Palese, medical director of the department of urology and among the few surgeons in the U.S. trained in open, laparoscopic and robotic kidney procedures.
• Peter Palese, expert on influenza and the Horace W. Goldsmith Professor of Microbiology at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.
• Giulio Maria Pasinetti, Saunders Family Chair and Professor of Neurology, program director of the Center for Molecular Integrative Neuroresilience at the Icahn School of Medicine.
• Sean P. Pinney, director of both the Advanced Heart Failure and Cardiac Transplant Program and the Pulmonary Hypertension Program.
• John Puskas, cardiac surgeon noted for performing the first totally thoracoscopic bilateral pulmonary vein isolation procedure and co-editor of State of the Art Surgical Coronary Revascularization, the first textbook solely devoted to coronary artery surgery.
• Kristjan T. Ragnarsson, physiatrist and professor and chair of rehabilitation medicine with an international reputation in the rehabilitation of individuals with disorders of the central nervous system.
• David L. Reich, president and chief operating officer of the Mount Sinai Hospital, chairman of the department of anesthesiology, and a pioneer in the use of electronic medical records.
• Joy S. Reidenberg, professor of anatomy.
• Elisa Rush Port, director and co-founder of the Dubin Breast Center at Mount Sinai Health System.
• Eric Schadt, computational biologist, dean for precision medicine.
• Alan L. Schiller, professor and chair of the department of pathology and member of the board of directors of the National Space Biomedical Research Institute.
• Bernd Schröppel, transplant nephrologist and assistant professor of nephrology.
• Stuart C. Sealfon, identified the primary structure of the gonadotropin-releasing hormone receptor.
• Aryeh Shander, recognized in 1997 by Time magazine as one of America's "Heroes of Medicine".
• Joseph Sonnabend, physician, scientist and HIV/AIDS researcher, notable for pioneering community-based research, the propagation of safe sex to prevent infection, and an early and unconventional multifactorial model of AIDS.
• Filip Swirski, professor, researcher and scientist, known for novel findings in linking atherosclerosis with blood monocytosis.
• Ilya B. Tsyrlov, biochemist, molecular toxicologist, and virologist.
• I. Michael Leitman, surgeon and dean for graduate medical education, professor in the Department of Medical Education and the Department of Surgery.
• Samuel Waxman, Distinguished Service Professor of Oncological Science.
• Denise Cai, associate professor, neuroscientist, co-developer of the UCLA miniscope, and co-director of the Computational and Systems Neuroscience Center.

External links

• Official website