The Department of Pharmacological Sciences focuses on the biological mechanisms underlying complex physiology and pathophysiology and on translating biological knowledge into new therapeutics. Here are some of our research milestones:
Scientific Highlights
1965
Irving L. Schwartz, MD, becomes the founding Chair of the Department of Physiology, and also the founding Dean of Mount Sinai Graduate School of Biological Sciences. Under Dr. Schwartz’s early leadership, Mount Sinai grew as a center of excellence in translational research. He believed in “vital interdisciplinary interactions among clinicians, basic scientists, medical students, and graduate students within one institution.”
1967
Panayotis Katsoyannis, PhD, is appointed as the founding Chair of the Department of Biochemistry. Dr. Katsoyannis later achieves a measure of fame for his studies on the synthesis of oxytocin and vasopressin and as the first to chemically synthesize human insulin.
1968
Jack Peter Green, MD, PhD, becomes the founding Chair of the Department of Pharmacology, paving the way for the development of an unparalleled research department.
1974
Jack Peter Green, MD, PhD, along with Harel Weinstein, DSc, and their colleagues, institute the use of computational techniques to study drug-receptor interactions to predict biological activity, thereby proving a model for rational drug design.
1976
Harel Weinstein, DSc, and his colleagues describe, for the first time and long before the first receptor molecule was cloned, a discrete molecular mechanism for the action of a neurotransmitter on its receptor, a mechanism that is still considered valid today.
1981
Terry Ann Krulwich, PhD, Professor of Biochemistry, is appointed the Dean of Mount Sinai Graduate School of Biological Sciences, a rare senior leadership role for a woman at that time, serving in that position until 2002. Among her enduring achievements are establishing a mandatory core curriculum for PhD students; introducing new training disciplines such as immunobiology; strengthening established teaching programs in cancer biology, structural biology, computational biology, and neurosciences; creating multidisciplinary training areas to spur cross-disciplinary learning; initiating research ethics courses; and creating advisory committees to guide the academic career of every PhD student.
1985
Harel Weinstein, DSc, is named as the Chair of the Department of Physiology and Biophysics, leading to a major expansion of computational biophysics at Mount Sinai.
1991
Francesco Ramirez, PhD, and colleagues at Mount Sinai report their seminal discovery of fibrillin as the Marfan’s syndrome gene in the July 25 issue of Nature.
1995
Panayotis Katsoyannis, PhD, Professor and Chair of Biochemistry, is awarded the Jacobi Medallion by The Mount Sinai Alumni. The Jacobi Medallion is one of the highest honors Mount Sinai bestows upon its current or former colleagues for distinguished achievements in the field of medicine, or for extraordinary service to the School of Medicine, the Hospital, or the alumni.
1997
Roman Osman, PhD, Professor of Physiology and Biophysics, is elected as the President for International Society of Quantum Biology & Pharmacology.
1998
Francesco Ramirez, PhD, is appointed the Dr. Amy and James Elster Chair of Molecular Biology (Connective Tissue Diseases) and Professor of Pharmacology, and of Medicine-Cardiology.
1998
Aneel Aggarwal, PhD, Professor of Physiology and Biophysics, and his colleagues report their discovery of the first structural principles by which eukaryotic transcription factors form cooperative, combinatorial complexes to specifically bind DNA enhancer sites for gene expression in cells (Escalante et al., Nature 1998; Passner, et al., Nature 1999).
1999
Ravi Iyengar, PhD, is appointed Chair of the Department of Pharmacology.
1999
Ravi Iyengar, PhD and his research team report the first systems biology models of cell regulatory networks (Bhalla & Iyengar, Science 1999).
1999
Ravi Iyengar, PhD and his research team report the first systems biology models of cell regulatory networks (Bhalla & Iyengar, Science 1999).
1999
Ming-Ming Zhou, PhD, and his colleagues in the Department of Physiology and Biophysics report their seminal discovery of the bromodomain as the lysine-acetylated histone binding domain (Dhalluin et al., Nature 1999). The bromodomain is regarded as the first chromatin ‘reader’, allowing histone modifications to regulate gene transcription in chromatin by recruiting transcription proteins (bearing the bromodomain) to target genes.
2001
Ravi Iyengar, PhD, is appointed as Dorothy H. and Lewis Rosenstiel Professor and Chair of the Department of Pharmacology and Biological Chemistry, created with merger of the Department of Biochemistry and the Department of Pharmacology that share growing commonality of research interests in biochemical mechanisms.
2003
Ming-Ming Zhou, PhD, and his MD/PhD student, Kelley Yan in the Department of Physiology and Biophysics report their discovery of the basic structural mechanism by which the conserved PAZ domain (present in RNAi proteins) recognizes RNA and directs RNAi-mediated gene translational silencing (Yan, et al. Nature 2003).
2003
Terry Ann Krulwich, PhD, Sharon and Frederick A. Klingenstein-Nathan G. Kase, MD, Professor of Pharmacology and Biological Chemistry, earned the unusual distinction from her peers of having a bacterium, Bacillus krulwichiae, named after her in recognition of her extraordinary contributions to the study of alkaliphilic bacteria including her groundbreaking discovery of proton transport mechanisms in such bacteria species.
2004
Aneel Aggarwal, PhD, Professor of Physiology and Biophysics, and his colleagues report their discovery of the structural mechanism by which human DNA polymerase-iota directs DNA replication through Hoogsteen base-pairing rather than canonical Watson-Crick base pair (Nair, et al., Nature 2004).
2004
Ravi Iyengar, PhD, Dorothy H. and Lewis Rosenstiel Professor and Chair of Pharmacology and Biological Chemistry, is elected as a Fellow of American Association for Advancement of Science (AAAS) in recognition of his distinguished academic achievements.
2005
Ming-Ming Zhou, PhD, Dr. Harold and Golden Lamport Professorship in Physiology and Biophysics, is appointed the Chair of the Department of Physiology and Biophysics.
2005
The Department of Physiology and Biophysics is renamed as the Department of Structural and Chemical Biology.
2006
The Department of Pharmacology and Biological Chemistry is renamed as the Dorothy H. and Lewis Rosenstiel Department of Pharmacology and Systems Therapeutics.
2007
Aneel Aggarwal, PhD, is named Mount Sinai Professor of Structural Biology in recognition of his distinguished academic achievements.
2009
Ravi Iyengar, PhD, leads a multi-principal investigator project funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to systematically assemble functional human kidney tissue from tissue modeled on a computer under the project, Dynamics Underlying Tissue Integrity. This approach could lead to a more predictable way for researchers to engineer tissue outside the body and, consequently, to screen for new drugs.
2010
Ming-Ming Zhou, PhD, Dr. Harold and Golden Lamport Professor, and his colleagues in the Department of Structural and Chemical Biology report their discovery of the tandem Zn-coordinated PHD finger transcription protein DPF3b as a new chromatin ‘reader’, the first alternative to the bromodomain for lysine-acetylated histone binding in gene transcription (Zeng, et al. Nature 2010).
2010
Aneel Aggarwal, PhD, Mount Sinai Professor of Structural Biology, and his colleagues in the Department of Structural and Chemical Biology report their discovery of structural basis for the suppression of skin cancers by DNA polymerase eta (Silverstein, et al., Nature 2010). This study opens a door for rational design of new targeted therapeutics in fight against skin cancers.
2010
Ravi Iyengar, PhD, leads a new study toward the ability to predict adverse drug reactions, using genetic, cellular, and clinical information to learn why some medicines cause heart arrhythmias in patients.
2010
Terry Ann Krulwich, PhD, Sharon and Frederick A. Klingenstein-Nathan G. Kase, MD, Professor of Pharmacology and Systems Therapeutics, and David Hicks, PhD, Assistant Professor of Pharmacology and Systems Therapeutics, enhance our understanding of the mechanism by which cells achieve energy conversion, the process in which food converts into the energy required by cells. This groundbreaking research helps scientists gain atomic-level insight into how organisms synthesize their major form of chemical energy. The researchers’ findings were published in the August issue of PLoS Biology.
2010
Led by Lakshmi Devi, PhD, researchers from Mount Sinai School of Medicine discover a major mechanism underlying the development of tolerance to chronic morphine treatment. The discovery may help researchers find new therapies to treat chronic pain and reduce tolerance and side effects associated with morphine use. The findings are published in the July 20 issue of Science Signaling.
2010
A team led by Avi Ma’ayan, PhD, Assistant Professor, Pharmacology and Systems Therapeutics, a team at Mount Sinai integrates the results from ChIP-seq and ChIP-chips experiments, collecting data from more than 100 proteins that bind DNA to regulate gene expression, called transcription factors, into one database.
2011
Jian Jin, PhD, Professor of Structural and Chemical Biology, and his collaborator, Cheryl Arrowsmith, PhD at Structural Genomics Consortium, University of Toronto, report rational design and development of selective chemical inhibitor targeting G9a and GLP histone lysine methyltransferase activity in gene transcription (Vedadi, et al., Nature Chemical Biology 2011).
2011
Terry Ann Krulwich, PhD, Sharon and Frederick A. Klingenstein-Nathan G. Kase, MD, Professor of Pharmacology and Systems Therapeutics, is elected as a Fellow of American Association for Advancement of Science (AAAS) in recognition of her distinguished academic achievements.
2012
Researchers from the Mount Sinai School of Medicine identify a regulator protein that plays a crucial role in kidney fibrosis, a condition that leads to kidney failure. Finding this regulator provides a new therapeutic target for the millions of Americans affected by kidney failure. The research is published in the March 11 issue of Nature Medicine and was led by John Cijiang He, MD, PhD, Professor of Nephrology and Pharmacology and Systems Therapeutics, and Avi Ma’ayan, PhD, Assistant Professor of Pharmacology and Systems Therapeutics.
2012
Ming-Hu Han, PhD, Eric Nestler, MD/PhD, Professor of Neuroscience, and their colleagues at Mount Sinai report their discovery of major transcription factor BDNF function as a negative modulator of morphine action (Koo, et al, Science 2012).
2012
Mount Sinai School of Medicine researchers have discovered that marijuana-like chemicals trigger receptors on human immune cells that can directly inhibit a type of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) found in late-stage AIDS, according to new findings published online in the journal PLoS ONE. The study author is Cristina Costantino, PhD, Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Pharmacology and Systems Therapeutics.
2012
Avi Ma’ayan, PhD, and Neil Clark, PhD, a postdoctoral fellow in the Ma’ayan Laboratory, develop a computational method to help organize scientific data, making it easier for scientists to identify and prioritize genes, drug targets, and connections between drugs.
2012
Arthur Cederbaum, PhD, Professor of Pharmacology and Systems Therapeutics, receives Lifetime Achievement Award from Research Society on Alcoholism in recognition of his distinguished contributions in research on biochemical, metabolic and toxicological effects of alcohol in the liver.
2012
Ming-Ming Zhou, PhD, Dr. Harold and Golden Lamport Professor and Chair of Structural and Chemical Biology, is elected as a Fellow of American Association for Advancement of Science (AAAS) in recognition of his distinguished academic achievements.
2012
Francesco Ramirez, PhD, Drs. Amy and James Elster Professor of Pharmacology and Systems Therapeutics, is elected as a Fellow of American Association for Advancement of Science (AAAS) in recognition of his distinguished academic achievements.
2013
Ming-Hu Han, PhD, and his colleagues in the Department of Pharmacology and Systems Therapeutics report their discovery of rapid regulation of depression-related behaviors by control of midbrain dopamine neurons (Chaudhury, et al., Nature 2013).
2013
Lakshmi Devi, PhD, Professor of Pharmacology and Systems Therapeutics, identifies a receptor in the brain’s feeding center, important in obesity and other eating disorders. Dr. Devi’s laboratory works with drugs that show promise in targeting the receptor.
2013
Lakshmi Devi, PhD, Professor of Pharmacology and Systems Therapeutics, is elected as a Fellow of American Association for Advancement of Science (AAAS) in recognition of her distinguished academic achievements.
2013
Arvin Dar, PhD, Assistant Professor of Structural and Chemical Biology, and of Oncological Sciences, receives NIH Director’s New Innovator Award (DP2) in support of his target-based and systems pharmacology approaches to generate new classes of small molecule modulators for cancer and disease pathways.
2013
Ravi Iyengar, PhD, Dorothy H. and Lewis Rosenstiel Professor and Chair of the Department of Pharmacology and Systems Therapeutics, leads a study using the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Adverse Event Reporting System (FAERS), a hospital electronic health records database, and an animal model to show that by adding a second drug to the diabetes drug rosiglitazone, adverse events drop significantly.
2013
Paul Kenny, PhD, is appointed as the Ward-Coleman Professor and Chair of the Dorothy H. and Lewis Rosenstiel Department of Pharmacology and Systems Therapeutics. A leading researcher in the neurobiology of obesity and drug addiction, Dr. Kenny has helped advance the understanding of the mechanisms behind addiction-like behaviors, and his work has led to the development of medications for these behaviors.
2014
Venetia Zachariou, PhD, leads a study on identifying the specific pathways that promote opioid addiction, pain relief, and tolerance. This understanding is crucial in developing more effective and less dangerous analgesics, as well as developing new treatments for addiction. It also reveals that opiate use alters the activity of a specific protein needed for the normal functioning of the brains reward center.
2014
Ming-Hu Han, PhD, and Allyson K. Friedman, PhD, lead a study that points to a conceptually novel therapeutic strategy for treating depression. Instead of dampening neuron firing found with stress-induced depression, researchers demonstrated for the first time that further activating these neurons opens a new avenue to mimic and promote natural resilience (Friedman, et al., Science 2014).
2014
Avi Ma’ayan, PhD, and his Mount Sinai research team receive a $20 million grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to create a center to integrate databases and build computer models that glean new insights on how human cells reacts to drugs and toxins. The goal is to accelerate the discovery of new therapies and diagnostics by mining data.
2014
Ming-Ming Zhou, PhD, and colleagues in the Department of Structural and Chemical Biology, with their collaborator, Peter Zhou, PhD at University of Kentucky College of Medicine, report their discovery of the structural mechanism by which transcription factor Twist and bromodomain protein BRD4 work in concert to activate oncogene transcription in triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) (Shi, et al., Cancer Cell 2014). This discovery paves the way for developing new targeted therapy against TNBC.
2015
Martin Walsh, PhD, Professor of Structural and Chemical Biology, and his colleagues report their discovery of a transcription regulatory mechanism coordinating m6A mRNA methylation and gene transcription through Zfp217 function in control of stem cell pluripotency and reprogramming (Aguilo, et al., Cell Stem Cell 2015).
2015
Ian Maze, PhD, Assistant Professor of Pharmacology and Systems Therapeutics, discovers that histones are steadily replaced in brain cells throughout life – a process that helps to switch genes on and off (Neuron 2105). This histone replacement, known as turnover, enables our genetic machinery to adapt to our environment by prompting gene expression, the conversion of genes into the proteins that comprise cellular structures and carry signals in the brain.
2015
The Systems Biology of Disease and Therapeutics training program merges with the Structural/Chemical Biology and Molecular Design Program to create the Biophysics and Systems Pharmacology training program.
2015
Francesco Ramirez, PhD, Dr. Amy and James Elster Professor of Pharmacology and Systems Therapeutics, is elected as the President of International Society of Matrix Biology (2015-2017).
2016
Aneel Aggarwal, PhD, and Prem Reddy, PhD, Professor of Structural and Chemical Biology, and Oncological Sciences, report their discovery of structural mechanism of a small molecule RAS-mimetic that functions to disrupts RAS interactions with effector proteins in tumorigenesis, providing important insights into this drug mechanism of action, which is being actively evaluated human clinical trials as a novel anticancer therapy (Athuluri-Divakar, et al., Cell 2016).
2016
Arvin Dar, PhD, Assistant Professor of Structural and Chemical Biology, and Oncological Sciences, and his colleagues report their rational design and development of small molecules that stabilize the KSR inactive state, thereby antagonizing oncogenic Ras signaling (Dhawan, et al., Nature 2016). This study has broad implications in fight against Ras-driven human cancers.
2016
Marta Filizola, PhD, Professor of Structural and Chemical Biology, is appointed the Dean of Mount Sinai Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences.
2016
Ming-Ming Zhou, PhD, Dr. Harold and Golden Lamport Professor, is appointed as the Chair of the Department of Pharmacological Sciences, created with merger of the Dorothy H. and Lewis Rosenstiel Department of Pharmacology and Systems Therapeutics and the Department of Structural and Chemical Biology.
2016
Arthur Cederbaum, PhD, Professor of Pharmacological Sciences, receives Hiromasa Ishii Memorial Award from International Society Biomedical Research Alcohol in honor of his distinguished research achievements in alcohol metabolism in biology and diseases.
2016
Martin Walsh, PhD, Professor of Structural and Chemical Biology, and his collaborator, Housheng Hansen He, PhD, Professor at University of Toronto Princess Margaret Cancer Center, report their discovery of risk SNPs in epigenetic control of gene transcription through long noncoding RNAs underlying genetic predispositions to prostate cancer (Guo, et al., Nature Genetics 2016).
2018
The Department hosts a Specific Symposium celebrating Prof. Terry Ann Krulwich’s 48 years of extraordinary academic achievements and distinguished service and leadership in research and education at Mount Sinai.
2018
Ravi Iyengar, PhD, Dorothy H. and Lewis Rosenstiel Professor of Pharmacological Sciences, is honored with the Jacobi Medallion by The Mount Sinai Alumni in recognition of his distinguished academic achievements.
2018
Marta Filizola, PhD, is named the Sharon and Frederick Klingenstein/Nathan Kase, MD Professorship in recognition of her distinguished academic achievements.
2018
Jian Jin, PhD, is named Mount Sinai Professor in Therapeutics Discovery in recognition of his distinguished academic achievements.
2018
Jian Jin, PhD, Mount Sinai Professor in Therapeutics Discovery, and his collaborator, Bryan Roth, PhD at University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, report their development of novel β-arrestin-biased Ligands for Aminergic G-protein coupled receptors (GPCRs) (McCorvy, et al., Nature Chemical Biology 2018), paving the way to study molecular mechanisms underlying a wide array of human cancer and neurological disorders.
2018
Aneel Aggarwal, PhD, Mount Sinai Professor of Structural Biology, is elected as a fellow of Royal Society of Biology (UK) in recognition of his distinguished academic achievements in structural biology study of protein-nucleic acid interactions.
2019
Ming-Ming Zhou, PhD, Dr. Harold and Golden Lamport Professor and Chair of the Department of Pharmacological Sciences, is awarded the Jacobi Medallion by The Mount Sinai Alumni in recognition of his distinguished academic achievements.
2019
Lakshmi Devi, PhD, is named Mount Sinai Professor in Molecular Pharmacology in recognition of her distinguished academic achievements.
2019
Avi Ma’ayan, PhD, is named Mount Sinai Professor in Bioinformatics in recognition of his distinguished academic achievements.
2019
Aneel Aggarwal, PhD, Mount Sinai Professor of Structural Biology, and his colleague Dr. Rinku Jain, report their discovery how the enzyme DNA polymerase delta works to duplicate the genome that cells hand down from one generation to the next (Jain, et al., Nature Structural & Molecular Biology 2019). Their study also explains how certain mutations can modulate the activity of this enzyme, leading to cancers and other diseases.
2019
Jian Jin, PhD, Mount Sinai Professor in Therapeutics Discovery, and his collaborator, Ramon Parsons, Professor and Chair of Oncological Sciences, report their discovery of a first-in-class selective degrader targeting EZH2 (Ma, et al., Nature Chemical Biology, 2019), a key epigenetic protein and a long-sought-after drug target for a wide array of human cancers. This study paves the way to develop a new treatment for triple-negative breast cancer, one of the most devastating cancers that currently lacks a targeted therapy.
2020
Profs. Michael Lazarus and Avner Schlessinger, and their colleagues, report their discovery of novel small molecule inhibitors targeting ULK4, a schizophrenia-linked pseudokinase (Khamrui, et al, Journal of American Chemical Society, 2020). This study opens an exciting opportunity to develop new therapeutic treatment for the fight against schizophrenia, a devastating neuropsychiatric disorder.
2020
Jian Jin, PhD, Mount Sinai Professor in Therapeutics Discovery, and Lakshmi Devi, PhD, Mount Sinai Professor in Molecular Pharmacology are recognized with Faculty Council Award for Academic Excellence by Senior Faculty, and Faculty Council Lifetime Achievement Award, respectively from Mount Sinai Faculty Council for their outstanding academic achievements.
2020
A research team from Mount Sinai, led by Aneel Aggarwal, PhD, Mount Sinai Professor of Structural Biology, and his colleague Dr. Radhika Malik (Malik, et al., Nature Structural & Molecular Biology2020), has unraveled for the first time the three-dimensional structure and mechanism of a complex DNA polymerase that protects cells from constant DNA damage, opening the door to discovery of new therapeutics for the treatment of chemotherapy-resistant cancers.