Mount Sinai launches new Center for Computational Immunology

The Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai has created a hub to help researchers find better-targeted immunotherapies by studying cancer, genomics, machine learning and immunology.

The new Center for Computational Immunology, launched by Icahn’s Tisch Cancer Institute and the Precision Immunology Institute, will be headed by Benjamin Greenbaum, assistant professor of oncological sciences, pathology, and medicine (hematology and medical oncology).

“Our focus is on trying to utilize Mount Sinai’s already established broad expertise in immunology, cancer and computational sciences to move forward immunological studies in cancer,” says Greenbaum. “We want to understand how to model interactions between cancers and the immune system to help more people benefit from the life-saving potential of immunotherapy.”

Also See: Mount Sinai is home to new institute for digital health

“The center will fuel the bench-to-bedside culture already finding great new innovations at The Tisch Cancer Institute,” says Ramon Parsons, MD, director of The Tisch Cancer Institute, Ward-Coleman Chair in Cancer Research and chair of oncological sciences at the Icahn School of Medicine. “This cross-disciplinary team is working to find answers in some of the most promising therapies for cancer patients today.”

The Tisch Cancer Institute recently added two well-known computational scientists to its staff who will play an integral role in the development of the Center for Computational Immunology.

The new hires are Marta Luksza, from the Simons Center for Systems Biology at the Institute for Advanced Study, as an assistant professor of oncological sciences, and genetics and genomic sciences, and Paz P. Polak, from the Eli and Edythe L. Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, who is now assistant professor of oncological sciences, genetics and genomic sciences, pathology and medicine (hematology and medical oncology).

“The Precision Immunology Institute at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai is excited about this new venture that allows us to look further into the tumor microenvironment for answers,” says Miriam Merad, MD, director of the Precision Immunology Institute, director of the Mount Sinai Human Immune Monitoring Center, and Mount Sinai professor in cancer immunology. “We are at a critical juncture of really understanding why patients respond or don’t respond to immunotherapy.”