Seaver Autism Center

Last updated
Seaver Autism Center for Research and Treatment
Formation1993 (1993)
Location
  • Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
Director
Joseph Buxbaum, Ph.D.
Website Seaver Autism Center

The Seaver Autism Center for Research and Treatment at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai conducts research studies and provides care to children and adults with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The Seaver Autism Center works to understand the biological causes of ASD and to develop treatments, as well as provide education and training opportunities.

Contents

As a collaborative effort that integrates the fields of psychiatry, psychology, neurology, molecular genetics, neuroscience, and neuroimaging, the Center receives funding from diverse sources, including the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in addition to multiple foundations and the pharmaceutical industry. The Center receives over 600 new referrals each year and 100 contacts per month, including patients enrolled in ongoing treatment. [1]

History

The Seaver Autism Center was founded in 1993 by a grant to the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai from the Beatrice and Samuel A. Seaver Foundation. The Foundation was established in 1984 and created exclusively for charitable, scientific, literary, and educational endeavors.

Leadership

Director: Joseph Buxbaum, PhD [2]

Clinical Director: Alex Kolevzon, MD [3]

Chief Psychologist: Paige M. Siper, PhD [4]

Director of Community Outreach: Michelle Gorenstein-Holtzman, PsyD [5]

Director of Psychology Training: Danielle B. Halpern, PsyD [6]

Research

Members of the research team participate in interrelated ASD research programs in genetics, experimental therapeutics, neuroimaging, and cognitive neuroscience. Researchers publish over 40 related articles per year [7] [8] in peer-reviewed journals. The Center uses methods of genetic epidemiology, molecular and cell biology, genetics, and animal models to identify genes that contribute to ASD susceptibility and use that knowledge to develop novel therapeutics. [9] [10]

The Seaver Autism Center offers an integrated series of clinical research studies in treatments, genetics, and brain imaging. [11] All services provided as part of research studies are free of charge to eligible participants and can include gold standard diagnostic assessments such as the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule – Second Edition (ADOS-2), the Autism Diagnostic Interview-Revised (ADI-R), psychiatric evaluations, and neuropsychological testing. [12] [13]

Clinical Services

The Center provides comprehensive clinical services, [14] including but not limited to psychiatric evaluations and Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedules (ADOS). These services are provided free-of-charge to people with autism, with participation in a research study. The Center also provides support and training for parents and siblings of individuals with autism. [15]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai</span> American medical school

The Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, formerly the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, is a private medical school in New York City, New York, United States. The school is the academic teaching arm of the Mount Sinai Health System, which manages eight hospital campuses in the New York metropolitan area, including Mount Sinai Hospital and the New York Eye and Ear Infirmary.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">New York Eye and Ear Infirmary</span> Hospital in New York, United States

New York Eye and Ear Infirmary of Mount Sinai (NYEE) is located at East 14th Street and Second Avenue in lower Manhattan, New York City. Founded on August 14, 1820, NYEE is America's first specialty hospital and one of the most prominent in the fields of ophthalmology and otolaryngology in the world, providing primary inpatient and outpatient care in those specialties. Previously affiliated with New York Medical College, as of 2013 it is affiliated with the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai as a part of the membership in the Mount Sinai Health System.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kenneth L. Davis</span>

Kenneth L. Davis is the executive vice chairperson of the board of trustees at the Mount Sinai Health System in New York City, and an American author and medical researcher who developed the Alzheimer's Disease Assessment Scale, the most widely used tool to test the efficacy of treatments for Alzheimer's disease designed specifically to evaluate the severity of cognitive and noncognitive behavioral dysfunctions characteristic to persons with Alzheimer's disease. His research led to four of the first five FDA-approved drugs for Alzheimer's.

Samuel E. Gandy, is a neurologist, cell biologist, Alzheimer's disease (AD) researcher and expert in the metabolism of the sticky substance called amyloid that clogs the brain in patients with Alzheimer's. His team discovered the first drugs that could lower the formation of amyloid.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert J. Desnick</span> American geneticist

Robert J. Desnick is an American human geneticist whose basic and translational research accomplishments include significant discoveries in genomics, pharmacogenetics, gene therapy, personalized medicine, and the treatment of genetic diseases. His translational research has led to the development of the enzyme replacement therapy (ERT) and the chaperone therapy for Fabry disease, ERT for Niemann–Pick disease type B, and the RNA Interference Therapy for the Acute Hepatic Porphyrias.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eric Schadt</span> American scientist

Eric Emil Schadt is an American mathematician and computational biologist. He is founder and former chief executive officer of Sema4, a patient-centered health intelligence company, and dean for precision medicine and Mount Sinai Professor in Predictive Health and Computational Biology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. He was previously founding director of the Icahn Institute for Genomics and Multiscale Biology and chair of the Department of Genetics and Genomics Sciences at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.

Maria Iandolo New is a professor of Pediatrics, Genomics and Genetics at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City. She is an expert in congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH), a genetic condition affecting the adrenal gland that can affect sexual development.

Ethylin Wang Jabs is an American physician and scientist with expertise in medical genetics, pediatrics, and craniofacial biology. She is currently vice chair of the Department of Genetics and Genomic Sciences at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai Medical Center. Jabs is also a professor in the departments of developmental and regenerative biology and pediatrics at Mount Sinai and an adjunct professor in pediatrics, medicine, and surgery at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. Her research and clinical practice have focused on development genetics and patients with birth defects.

Joseph D. Buxbaum is an American molecular and cellular neuroscientist, autism researcher, and the Director of the Seaver Autism Center at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Buxbaum is also, along with Simon Baron-Cohen, the co-editor of the BioMed Central journal Molecular Autism, and is a member of the scientific advisory board of the Autism Science Foundation. Buxbaum is a Professor of Psychiatry, Neuroscience, and Genetics and Genomic Sciences. He is also the Vice Chair for Research and for Mentoring in the Department of Psychiatry at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.

Rachel Yehuda is a professor of psychiatry and neuroscience, the vice chair for veterans affairs in the psychiatry department, and the director of the traumatic stress studies division at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine. She also leads the PTSD clinical research program at the neurochemistry and neuroendocrinology laboratory at the James J. Peters VA Medical Center. In 2020 she became director of the Center for Psychedelic Psychotherapy and Trauma Research at Mount Sinai.

Simin Liu is an American physician researcher. He holds leadership positions internationally in the research of nutrition, genetics, epidemiology, and environmental and biological influences of complex diseases related to cardiometabolic health in diverse population. His research team has uncovered new mechanisms and risk-factors as well as developed research frameworks for diabetes and cardiovascular diseases. Liu's laboratory conducts research mainly in the United States, though the group has had research collaborations, teaching, and service activities in six of the Seven Continents.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Giulio Maria Pasinetti</span>

Giulio Maria Pasinetti is the Program Director of the Center on Molecular Integrative Neuroresilience and is the Saunders Family Chair in Neurology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai (ISMMS) in New York City. Pasinetti is a Professor of Neurology, Psychiatry, Neuroscience, and Geriatrics and Palliative Medicine at ISMMS.

ADNP syndrome, also known as Helsmoortel-Van der Aa syndrome (HVDAS), is a non-inherited neurodevelopmental disorder caused by mutations in the activity-dependent neuroprotector homeobox (ADNP) gene.

John N. Constantino is a child psychiatrist and expert on neurodevelopmental disorders, especially autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Constantino is the Blanche F. Ittleson Professor of Psychiatry and Pediatrics at Washington University School of Medicine.

Protein-truncating variants (PTVs) are genetic variants predicted to shorten the coding sequence of genes, through ways like a stop-gain mutation. PTV is sometime categorized under the umbrella term frameshift or truncating variants (FTVs), which includes both PTVs and DNA variants caused by frameshift mutation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mount Sinai West</span> Hospital in New York City

Mount Sinai West, opened in 1871 as Roosevelt Hospital, is affiliated with the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and the Mount Sinai Health System.

Anne Schaefer is a neuroscientist, professor of Neuroscience, vice-chair of Neuroscience, and director of the Center for Glial Biology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City. Schaefer investigates the epigenetic mechanisms of cellular plasticity and their role in the regulation of microglia-neuron interactions. Her research is aimed at understanding the mechanisms underlying various neuropsychiatric disorders and finding novel ways to target the epigenome therapeutically.

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Jason C. Kovacic is an Australian-born cardiologist and physician-scientist; the Robert Graham Chair and Professor of Medicine, University of New South Wales; Executive Director of the Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute in Sydney, Australia; and Professor of Medicine (Cardiology) at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York.

Syndromic autism denotes cases of autism spectrum disorder that are associated with a broader medical condition, generally a syndrome. Cases without such association, which account for the majority of total autism cases, are known as non-syndromic autism.

References

  1. "Seaver Autism Center Annual Report" (PDF). Seaver Autism Center.
  2. "Seaver Autism Center Directors | Icahn School of Medicine". Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Retrieved 2016-07-07.
  3. "Seaver Autism Center Directors | Icahn School of Medicine". Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Retrieved 2016-07-07.
  4. "Seaver Autism Center Directors | Icahn School of Medicine". Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Retrieved 2016-07-07.
  5. "Seaver Autism Center Directors | Icahn School of Medicine". Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Retrieved 2016-07-07.
  6. "Seaver Autism Center Directors | Icahn School of Medicine". Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Retrieved 2016-07-07.
  7. pubmeddev. "buxbaum jd - PubMed - NCBI". www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov. Retrieved 2016-07-07.
  8. pubmeddev. "kolevzon a - PubMed - NCBI". www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov. Retrieved 2016-07-07.
  9. "Research | Icahn School of Medicine". Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Retrieved 2016-03-17.
  10. "Preclinical | Icahn School of Medicine". Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Retrieved 2016-03-17.
  11. "Clinical | Icahn School of Medicine". Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Retrieved 2016-03-17.
  12. "Comprehensive Assessment | Icahn School of Medicine". Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Retrieved 2016-03-17.
  13. "Evaluation | Icahn School of Medicine". Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Retrieved 2016-03-17.
  14. "Comprehensive Autism Assessment | Icahn School of Medicine". Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Retrieved 2016-07-07.
  15. "Treatment | Icahn School of Medicine". Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Retrieved 2016-03-17.