Discovery’s Science Channel Partners With Mount Sinai Health System to Create Digital Series Featuring Innovations in Science and Medicine

Discovery’s Science Channel has teamed up with Mount Sinai Health System, one of the country’s leading academic medical institutions, to showcase some of the groundbreaking innovations in science and medicine that are transforming health care and providing new treatments for the most intractable diseases and conditions.

A series of six digital news segments will focus on the research and researchers at Mount Sinai who are working toward solutions to diagnose and cure everything from opioid addiction to spinal cord injuries, the brain injury seen in many former athletes and soldiers, and more.

The series will be shown at various times on Science Channel starting in June and will also be posted to Science Channel’s social media platforms.

The segments are:

A Digital Spinal Cord: 
THOMAS OXLEY, MD, PhD, a neurointerventionalist and a global expert in bionics, is helping paralyzed people turn their thoughts into actions. With funding from the U.S. Defense Department, he invented a microscopic device that when implanted in the brain transmits signals to seamlessly control an exoskeleton or artificial limbs and works as a digital spinal cord. The Department of Rehabilitation and Human Performance at Mount Sinai is one of the first in the nation to offer a robotic exoskeleton with powered leg attachments that enable paraplegics to stand upright, walk, and climb stairs.

Diagnosing Brain Injury Before It’s Too Late:
Chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE for short, has been making headlines as more and more veterans and athletes are diagnosed postmortem with signs of CTE. SAM GANDY, MD, PhD, and his team are working to diagnose and treat it while people are still alive. They’re pioneering the use of a new imaging agent to detect and track progression of repetitive traumatic brain injury in patients with a history of concussions. The ability to see CTE in living patients is significant because it could help identify those who are beginning to experience brain damage and keep them off the playing field or battlefield, and open the door to potential treatments.

The Doctor’s Office of the Future:
Through a high-tech pop-up called Lab100, JOEL DUDLEY, PhD, and his team are building the hospital of the future. Working with a team in Silicon Valley and using the tools of data scientists and engineers, Dr. Dudley is revolutionizing patient care. By combining artificial intelligence, robotics, genomic sequencing, sensors, and wearable devices, he’s creating a completely individualized patient experience and using all of this data to reinvent the doctor’s office visit.

Reinventing Rehab for Spinal Cord Injuries:
After spending years working with Red Bull and Not Impossible Labs, DAVID PUTRINO, PhD, joined the Mount Sinai Performance Lab where people recovering from brain and spinal cord injuries can use their faces to control computers and video games. As Director of the Abilities Research Center at Mount Sinai, Dr. Purtrino and his team work to develop innovative technology solutions for individuals in need of better healthcare accessibility as well as those who want to perform better.

Using CBD to Cure Opioid Addiction:
With more than 115 Americans dying every day from opioid overdoses, there’s no question that the current tools in place to help addicts aren’t working. YASMIN HURD, PhD, and her team at Mount Sinai are changing that by investigating how using cannabinoids—chemicals extracted from the cannabis plant that, unlike the better-known THC, do not get you high—can reduce cravings and ease withdrawal symptoms in heroin users. By studying molecular and neurochemical reactions in the brain, Dr. Hurd has found that cannabinoids have long-lasting therapeutic effects for heroin addicts.

Depression? There’s an App for That:
Thanks to BRIAN IACOVIELLO, PhD, an Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and Head of Discovery and Translational Research for Click Therapeutics, and DENNIS CHARNEY, MD, Anne and Joel Ehrenkranz Dean of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and President for Academic Affairs of the Mount Sinai Health System, the first “digital therapeutic” treatment for depression is about to hit the market. Using a phone or tablet, patients identify faces that display certain emotions. It seems like a game, but the app is using sophisticated systems to build a detailed understanding of each person’s brain structure. In a clinical study, those using the app had a significantly greater reduction of major depressive disorder symptoms compared to a control group. 

The series is produced for Science Channel and Mount Sinai by Bungalow Media + Entertainment. Executive Producers for Bungalow are Robert Friedman and Mike Powers.

About the Mount Sinai Health System:
The Mount Sinai Health System is New York City’s largest integrated delivery system, encompassing eight hospitals, a leading medical school, and a vast network of ambulatory practices throughout the greater New York region. Mount Sinai’s vision is to produce the safest care, the highest quality, the highest satisfaction, the best access and the best value of any health system in the nation. The Health System includes approximately 7,480 primary and specialty care physicians; 11 joint-venture ambulatory surgery centers; more than 410 ambulatory practices throughout the five boroughs of New York City, Westchester, Long Island, and Florida; and 31 affiliated community health centers. The Icahn School of Medicine is one of three medical schools that have earned distinction by multiple indicators: ranked in the top 20 by U.S. News & World Report’s “Best Medical Schools”, aligned with a U.S. News & World Report’s “Honor Roll” Hospital, No. 12 in the nation for National Institutes of Health funding, and among the top 10 most innovative research institutions as ranked by the journal Nature in its Nature Innovation Index. This reflects a special level of excellence in education, clinical practice, and research. The Mount Sinai Hospital is ranked No. 18 on U.S. News & World Report’s “Honor Roll” of top U.S. hospitals; it is one of the nation’s top 20 hospitals in Cardiology/Heart Surgery, Gastroenterology/GI Surgery, Geriatrics, Nephrology, and Neurology/Neurosurgery, and in the top 50 in six other specialties in the 2018-2019 “Best Hospitals” issue. Mount Sinai’s Kravis Children’s Hospital also is ranked nationally in five out of ten pediatric specialties by U.S. News & World Report. The New York Eye and Ear Infirmary of Mount Sinai is ranked 11th nationally for Ophthalmology and 44th for Ear, Nose, and Throat. Mount Sinai Beth Israel, Mount Sinai St. Luke’s, Mount Sinai West, and South Nassau Communities Hospital are ranked regionally.

For more information, visit http://www.mountsinai.org/, or find Mount Sinai on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

About Science Channel:
Science Channel, a multi-media business unit of Discovery, Inc. is the home of all things science around the clock, including series such as MYTHBUSTERS, OUTRAGEOUS ACTS OF SCIENCE, WHAT ON EARTH?,  HOW THE UNIVERSE WORKS, UNEARTHED, and MYSTERIES OF THE ABANDONED. Science Channel’s programming also includes timely, expert-driven specials covering breaking science news and discoveries. Science Channel is the premiere TV, digital and social community for those with a passion for science, space, technology, archeology, and engineering, providing immersive, engaging, high-quality entertainment across all Science Channel assets including: Science Channel television network, available in more than 63 million homes in the U.S; complimentary Video On Demand offering; SCI Go app allowing viewers to catch up on full episodes of their favorite shows anytime; deep video, interactive storytelling and virtual reality at www.sciencechannel.com; and conversations on Science Channel’s popular social platforms including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat via @ScienceChannel.

About Discovery:
Discovery, Inc. (Nasdaq: DISCA, DISCB, DISCK) is a global leader in real life entertainment, serving a passionate audience of superfans around the world with content that inspires, informs and entertains. Discovery delivers over 8,000 hours of original programming each year and has category leadership across deeply loved content genres around the world. Available in 220 countries and territories and nearly 50 languages, Discovery is a platform innovator, reaching viewers on all screens, including TV Everywhere products such as the GO portfolio of apps; direct-to-consumer streaming services such as Eurosport Player and MotorTrend OnDemand; digital-first and social content from Group Nine Media and a strategic alliance with PGA TOUR to create the international home of golf. Discovery’s portfolio of premium brands includes Discovery Channel, HGTV, Food Network, TLC, Investigation Discovery, Travel Channel, MotorTrend, Animal Planet, and Science Channel, as well as OWN: Oprah Winfrey Network in the U.S., Discovery Kids in Latin America, and Eurosport, the leading provider of locally relevant, premium sports and Home of the Olympic Games across Europe. For more information, please visit https://corporate.discovery.com/ and follow @DiscoveryIncTV across social platforms.

ABOUT BUNGALOW MEDIA + ENTERTAINMENT, LLC:
Founded in 2013 by CEO Bob Friedman, a thirty-year veteran of the entertainment business having held senior roles at MTV, New Line Cinema, AOL and Radical Media, Bungalow is an integrated entertainment company that develops, produces and distributes content across all media platforms. Bob also serves on the Board of Mount Sinai.

Bungalow’s recently produced series include the Emmy Award winning GIVE for NBC, Corvette Heroes for the History Channel, The Panama Papers for EPIX, The Real SVU for Lifetime, Landmarks Live in Concert for PBS, Big Bad BBQ Brawl for the Cooking Channel, 36 Hours with the New York Times for the Travel Channel, the scripted dramas APB on Fox, Amazon’s Highston, Netflix’s Insatiable and feature documentaries Spring Broke on Showtime, We the People: The Market Basket Effect and the upcoming five-part mini-series The Preppie Murder for Sundance among others and various co-pros. Bungalow’s feature film projects include Clive Owen’s The Confirmation.