The CTSA Dean’s Team Science Award is an annual award given by the CTSA showcasing and rewarding exemplary team science.
Using a novel rubric, judges assess the multidisciplinary impact, clinical science representation, community involvement, innovation, and effectiveness of each team. Generally, there are one to two teams who are awarded a research grant from the CTSA to fund their project.
However, the committee this year, led by Janice Gabrilove, MD and Maida Galvez, MD, were so impressed by the submissions, and in recognition of the changed funding climate, that it was decided to award multiple teams. In the end, five teams were awarded, one grand prize, and four runners up.
The grand prize winner is The East Harlem Health Outreach Partnership (EHHOP) Mental Health Clinic. The East Harlem Health Outreach Partnership (EHHOP) is the Mount Sinai student-run free clinic with a 20+ year history of serving uninsured patients in East Harlem. The EHHOP Mental Health Clinic (MHC) provides mental health services, trains medical students as therapy providers and performs impactful research in a population that is largely less represented in science and medicine. With an interdisciplinary team of volunteer clinicians, basic and clinical researchers working together to seamlessly integrate research and clinical care in a student-run free clinic, the MHC research team not only improves the delivery of critical mental health services to uninsured residents but also generates actionable insights that drive systemic change. Our mission prioritizes interdisciplinary collaboration, community participation, and real-world impact to translate research into innovative solutions.
The runners up are as follows:
Madeline Kim, MD – SKIIN: SKin Immunophenotyping for IBD, Non-Invasive Precision
Rachel Litke, MD, PhD – From Bench Science to Population-Based Data to Treat Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Dementias
Aniwaa Owusu Obeng, PharmD – PharME – A mobile application that facilitates the integration of PGx testing into routine clinical practice
Daniel Puleston, PhD – Re-engineering of donor organs to advance human transplantation
Alan Seifert, PhD – Image-Guided Neuropathology and Radiology-Pathology Correlation to Investigate Mechanisms of Neurological Disease
All of the winners represent the best of team science principles, and are a showcase of the exciting work being done at Mount Sinai.
We will be showcasing the winners on our Lessons in Team Science series throughout the year. The next installment is September 18, 2025 at 12pm ET. Recordings of previous sessions can be found at our Emerging Investigators Website – linked here.
ConduITS is supported by NCATS of the NIH’s CTSA Program. Any use of CTSA-supported resources requires citation of grant number UL1TR004419 awarded to ISMMS in the acknowledgment section of every publication resulting from this support. Adherence to the NIH Public Access Policy is also required.
