In a discussion on “Organ Donation: How do we Share a Precious Resource?”, Sander S. Florman, MD, Director of the Recanati/Miller Transplantation Institute at The Mount Sinai Hospital, said that even if we make great strides to increase the numbers of donors, deceased organ donations are not enough to close the gap and provide enough organs to everyone who needs them. “We need to really focus our efforts on increasing the number of living organ donations. In order to do that, we should consider removing the disincentives to living organ donation.”

Dr. Florman explained, “Current federal laws allow for reimbursement to donors for travel- related expenses and for lost wages: we should fund these for everyone who wants to be a donor. We should make it easy for everyone to donate. They literally give a piece of themselves to save another person’s life. And if removing disincentives isn’t enough, then we should consider appropriate incentives to increase the number of living donors.”


In another panel on the ethics of editing the genetic code, Eric Schadt, PhD, Director of the Icahn Institute for Genomics and Multiscale Biology at the Icahn School of Medicine, said that gene-editing technologies such as CRISPR will have a dramatic impact on how we treat or even prevent disease in the future. “By using CRISPR, it will be possible to cure or prevent diseases by repairing the genetic mutation at the earliest stage of development. However, there are many ethical and safety implications that come with the power of this technology, so we need to have a conversation on how to control and guide the technology to ensure it is not abused.”

At the Aspen Institute Ideas Incubator, Prabhjot Singh, MD, PhD, Chairman of the Department of Health System Design & Global Health at the Mount Sinai Health System, launched ATLAS, which uses satellite data, bottom-up annotations, and machine-learning methods to deliver insights to frontline workers at the point of care. “We know that blind spots in the health of communities inevitably become hotspots of infectious or chronic conditions,” he said. “We need a new generation of scalable, socially engaging technologies that enable community insiders to use and share insights with health systems.”

For the duration of the Festival, Mount Sinai Heart experts offered complimentary blood pressure and cholesterol screenings to more than 570 participants. Individuals were also encouraged to download the “Circle of Health” app, which focuses on modifiable risk factors of cardiovascular disease that can account for 90 percent of heart attacks and strokes (BE-WAT: Blood pressure, Exercise, Weight loss, Alimentation, and Tobacco). The app was developed by Valentin Fuster, MD, PhD, Director of Mount Sinai Heart and Physician-in-Chief of The Mount Sinai Hospital.

Association Viewpoints Homepage