Mount Sinai Health has received a four-year, $3.26 million grant from the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) to establish the new Mount Sinai Center for Undiagnosed Diseases, the first Undiagnosed Diseases Network (UDN) site in the New York metropolitan area.
The funds were a grant from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, which is part of the NIH, and will expand the work of Mount Sinai's Undiagnosed Diseases Program, which was previously sponsored by the Mindich Child Health and Development Institute at Mount Sinai through private philanthropy, Mount Sinai said in a statement. Mount Sinai said that patients of any age with difficult-to-diagnose diseases can apply to have their cases studied at the new center as soon as the beginning of 2025.
The co-principal investigators of the Mindich Child Health and Development Institute, Drs. Bruce D. Gelb and Manisha Balwani, noted that the new center's aim is not only to provide services to patients in the New York metropolitan region but also to engage communities that have been underrepresented in medical research to assure that the UDN's resources are made available equitably. To improve diversity, Drs. Gelb and Balwani are partnering with the Institute for Family Health.
"There are approximately 25 million Americans who suffer from a rare disorder," Dr. Gelb said. "We hope this program will end diagnostic odysseys and inform meaningful therapies for these traits. We also hope this work will increase awareness among physicians in the Mount Sinai Health System about the utility of genomic medicine."
Undiagnosed diseases are defined as long-standing symptoms or elusive medical conditions that have not been definitively diagnosed despite extensive clinical evaluation, according to the UDN.
The UDN, established by the NIH in 2013, combines basic and clinical research services to uncover the underlying disease mechanisms associated with undiagnosed diseases. The UDN has facilitated diagnoses for more than 650 people nationwide in the past decade.
