Introduction to the special issue on Immunology at Mount Sinai

The history of modern immunology at Mount Sinai dates back to 1985, when the then dean Nathan Kase decided to expand our efforts in the area. At that point, we had only one faculty member at Mount Sinai whose research focus was in immunology, Constantin Bona in the Department of Microbiology. In the next few years, Lloyd Mayer, Jay Unkeless, Charlotte Cunningham-Rundles, Wayne Yokoyama, Paul Klotman, Tom Moran, Karen Zier, and Terry Davies were recruited. Each developed his/her own independent research program with institutional and departmental support. The problem remained that these investigators were housed in separate departments (Microbiology, Medicine, and Biochemistry), and graduate students were identified within these other disciplines and not in Immunology per se. In 1994, the Immunobiology program was given status as an independent area of concentration. Graduate students could now declare themselves as Immunology students with specific course work requirements. What evolved was a course in Fundamentals of Immunobiology (a 24–27 h course), an Advanced Topics in Immunology (3 separate 14 h interactive seminar series/year relating to new areas of interest taught by the Immunology faculty) and an Immunology Journal Club. The students were also required to participate in the weekly Immunology seminar series as well as in the work-inprogress meetings. The glue that held the program together, even before its independent status as a graduate program, was a program project grant in autoimmunity with Constantin Bona, MD, Ph.D. as the principal investigator. This PPG was funded from 1987 to 2003 and fostered many collaborations, the Flow Cytometry Core, the Hybridoma Core, the Immunology seminar series, work-in-progress meetings, the journal club and, most importantly, many new interactive program grants. In 1997, the Immunobiology Center was officially formed with Lloyd Mayer as the Chairman. This center was given departmental status with its own appointments and promotions power, an independent budget, and seed money to be used for the recruitment of between 5 and 7 new faculty members (Assistant/Associate Professor level). The mission of this new center was to expand and build upon the existing strength in Immunology at Mount Sinai. The center was provided state of the art laboratory research space in the Icahn Building, resources for recruitment, and a sizeable equipment budget. The Center grew from an initial 14 faculty (primary and secondary) to 25. With the new Dean came a switch in focus, from Departments to Institutes. The Immunology Institute of Mount Sinai School of Medicine was established in February of 2007 with Sergio Lira and Lloyd Mayer as Co-Directors. This new initiative included 37 investigators at the Sinai campus and its main mission is to foster research, collaboration, and education in immunology. With the establishment of the Institute, we also created a MD/PhD and PhD program in Immunology. For our educational mission, scientists meet weekly and discuss their findings at the Work-in-progress Seminar Series; once a month, we host internationally renowned immunologists at the Immunology Seminar Series, and once a year, we hold an Institute retreat to bring together all of the laboratories. The goal remains to promote a highly interactive productive environment for the training of graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, junior and senior faculty. Our recruitments over the past 15 years have L. Mayer (&) S. Lira A. Ting P. Cortes Immunology Institute, Mount Sinai Medical Center, 1425 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10029, USA e-mail: lloyd.mayer@mssm.edu Lloyd Mayer Patricia Cortes Adrian Ting Sergio Lira