By GREGORY ZELLER //
Northwell Health’s research-and-development mecca has secured a cutting-edge leader for what is arguably its most forward-thinking department.
Bioelectronic medicine, focused on electrical signaling within the central nervous system, is gaining international momentum as a cornerstone medical field, and nowhere is that more evident than at the Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research, where President and CEO Kevin Tracey reigns as the world’s leading bioelectronics authority.
Now, the Feinstein Institutes’ heralded Institute of Bioelectronic Medicine has named Lopa Mishra, a cancer and translational-medicine expert, as its new co-director, alongside scientist Yousef Al-Abed, who’s served as the IBM’s director since 2015.
Kevin Tracey: Knows a good bioelectronics researcher when he sees one.
Mishra, who also arrives as Feinstein’s first-ever Susan and Herman Merinoff Distinguished Chair in Translational Medicine, was most recently the director of George Washington University’s Center for Translational Medicine. She established various clinical and research programs at GW, focused mainly on cancer and gastrointestinal diseases.
As the IBM’s new co-director, she will leverage those experiences – and knowledge gleaned as chairwoman of the Department of Gastroenterology at the University of Texas’ MD Anderson Cancer Center – to develop novel therapies and initiate clinical trials centered on bioelectronic medicine, which combines disciplines such as molecular medicine and neuroscience.
Those are fields that Mishra, who also led the Anderson Center’s GI Cancer Program, is intimately familiar with. And she’s excited to apply those capabilities to the Feinstein Institutes’ pacesetting bioelectronics work, especially with nerve-stimulation sciences “at a pivotal moment.”
“(It’s) a moment that may soon turn the tide for how we treat some of the most serious diseases without traditional pharmaceuticals,” Mishra said Thursday. “I am eager to bring my experience, roll up my sleeves and begin working to amplify and advance the great research being done in the institute and across Northwell Health.”
Great research has been Mishra’s calling card. Over the last academic year alone, she has built six multidisciplinary collaborative programs at GW, while chairing five national and international meetings.
She’s also authored or co-authored 14 scientific publications in the last 17 months – more than 450 since 1988 – and boasts impressive mentoring experience: At GW, the professor of surgery developed a student-mentoring program credited with producing a pipeline of physician-scientists.
Throw in numerous advisory board positions – at UCLA, the Mayo Clinic, Virginia Commonwealth University, the University of Cincinnati and Georgetown University – and multiple ongoing studies dissecting the links between obesity and cancer, and the ace researcher is another top-tier addition to Northwell Health’s R&D mothership, according to Tracey.
“We are fortunate to welcome Dr. Mishra to the Feinstein Institutes,” the CEO said in a statement. “Her clinical and research excellence will further advance Northwell Health’s leadership in bioelectronic medicine and oncology.”
