Through the generous support of Pulitzer Prize-winning author and economic historian, Daniel Yergin, MA, PhD, and foreign policy expert, Angela Stent, MS, MA, PhD, the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai is proud to announce the Yergin-New International Prize for Biomedical Research. This Prize honors the values instantiated by Maria I. New, MD, through her transformative research at both bench and bedside for over 70 years. The prize is administered by Mount Sinai’s Center for Translational Medicine and Pharmacology, in conjunction with the Department of Pediatrics, Department of Medicine, and Department of Pharmacological Sciences, under the dedicated leadership of Mone Zaidi, MD, PhD.
The winner will be a physician-investigator who has made or is likely to make a seminal and lasting contribution to patient care through basic or clinical research. She/he will receive a $50,000 award and will deliver the Maria I. New Distinguished Lecture at Mount Sinai in the Fall of 2025. The winner will be selected by a prominent international jury. Self-nominations will not be accepted. The nomination cycle for the 2025 Prize begins on February 1 and closes on May 31, 2025. Please email nomination materials to Susan Babunovic (susan.babunovic@mssm.edu) at the Center for Translational Medicine and Pharmacology at Mount Sinai.
The following should be submitted as a single pdf file: (a) 50-word citation on seminal contribution(s) of the nominee; (b) detailed assessment of nominee’s contributions at the bench and/or clinic that have or are likely to impact the care of patients (not exceeding two pages); (c) up to two letters of support (not exceeding two pages for each); (d) a list of ten most impactful papers with full citations; and (e) a curriculum vitae or bio-sketch (not exceeding five pages).
For further information, please contact Mone Zaidi, MD, PhD (mone.zaidi@mssm.edu) or Susan Babunovic (susan.babunovic@mssm.edu).
Maria I. New International Prize Committee
The prize winners are selected by an international jury of prominent science community members:
- Nobel laureate Aaron Ciechanover, MD, DSc, Distinguished University Professor at The Rappaport Family Technion Integrated Cancer Center in Haifa, Israel
- Nancy Andrews, MD, PhD, Executive Vice President, and Chief Scientific Officer at Boston Children’s Hospital
- Nancy Brown, MD, Jean and David W. Wallace Dean and C.N.H. Long Professor of Internal Medicine, Yale University School of Medicine
- Bert W. O’Malley, MD, Tom Thompson Distinguished Service Professor of Molecular and Cellular Biology and Chancellor at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas
- Anna Wedell, MD, PhD, Professor of Medical Genetics in the Department of Molecular Medicine and Surgery at the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, Sweden
- Chair (ex-offico): Mone Zaidi, MD, PhD, Mount Sinai Professor of Clinical Medicine and Director, Mount Sinai Center for Translational Medicine and Pharmacology
About Maria I. New
Over the past half-century, Dr. Maria I. New earned a reputation as one of the nation's leading pediatric endocrinologists. Her studies on the genotypes and phenotypes of congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH) have led to treatments to prevent the disorder before the baby is born. CAH is a condition that presents as a dysregulation in the adrenal system, causing varying degrees of gender ambiguity, reproductive difficulties and urological impairments in females as well as precocious sexual development in males. Severe forms of CAH cause a deficiency in cortisol production which, without hormone replacement therapy, leads to an inability to regulate blood sugar, blood pressure and respond to illness and stress, while another form leads to a deficiency in aldosterone production which causes the life threatening inability to retain sodium and regulate potassium levels. Furthermore, her groundbreaking identification of a new form of hypertension, “apparent mineralocorticoid excess,” resulted in a new area of receptor biology.
After joining the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City in 2004, Dr. New continued her work as a Professor of Pediatrics and of Genetics and Genomic Sciences. She was also the Founding Director of Mount Sinai’s Adrenal Steroid Disorders Program.
As a member of the National Academy of Sciences, among several other prestigious academies, Dr. New demonstrated a lifetime dedication to biomedical research and clinical care, and her training of a generation of pediatricians and endocrinologists continues to have a far-reaching impact on the lives of patients and the medical community at large.
2024 Prize Winner
Christine E. Seidman, MD, the recipient of the Maria I. New International Prize for Biomedical Research, is the Thomas W. Smith Professor of Medicine and Genetics at Harvard Medical School and an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. She also serves as Director of the Cardiovascular Genetics Service at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston.
