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.
