As we approach the holiday season, a time often spent with family and friends, I am happy to share several stories of how we build—and sustain—our community at Albert Einstein College of Medicine. In this issue we feature a remarkable example of how our research and medical teams come together to create meaningful collaborations to better support our patient community. Operation IDD Gene Team, based in our National Institutes of Health-funded Rose F. Kennedy Institute for Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities Research Center, connects families of children who have rare genetic diseases with scientists at Einstein. Faculty members, their students, and postdocs help parents better understand the biology of the conditions affecting their children and seek potential solutions together. Learn more in our story, “The Gene Team: Confronting Rare Diseases.”

An important way we are building bonds for our students is through the Einstein Learning Communities Program (ELCP), which was launched in the fall of 2024. Each incoming M.D. and M.D./Ph.D. student is assigned to a team of six to eight peers, led by a faculty member, which supports them through all four years. ELCP provides weekly small-group clinical instruction and hours of one-on-one attention. The program, which fosters personal connections and a tight support network, is already garnering rave reviews from both students and faculty. Find out out more about ELCP in our article, “Small Teams Are Making a Big Difference in Medical Education.”

Uniting the breadth of the Montefiore Einstein research enterprise is a priority for the College of Medicine. Jessica Kahn, M.D., M.P.H., our senior associate dean for clinical and translational research, joined Einstein last year, drawn to our collaborative culture and commitment to improving health in the Bronx. One of her key roles is to help speed the translation of discoveries made in the lab into safe and effective treatments for patients. But an equally important responsibility of hers is to promote partnerships with our community, which are so critical to recruiting for potentially life-saving clinical trials and the uptake of new, proven therapies. Read more about Dr. Kahn’s leadership and research goals in this interview.

Finally, it is with a heavy heart that I share that the Einstein community lost a treasured colleague when Edward Chu, M.D., the director of the Montefiore Einstein Comprehensive Cancer Center, passed away from glioblastoma at the age of 66 in November. It’s hard to overstate what Dr. Chu accomplished in his short time here, truly transforming our cancer center into a wide-ranging enterprise—spanning basic science and translational research to clinical care and community outreach—and securing the “comprehensive” designation from the National Cancer Institute. But in addition to offering visionary leadership and professional accomplishments, Dr. Chu was a generous colleague, trusted mentor, and warm friend. You can read more about his life and legacy in our In Memoriam section.

In closing, I’d like to give my thanks to our trustees, donors, alumni, and friends of Einstein—for all that they do for the College of Medicine. Our community invests meaning into our work and successes, and I thank each of you for being a part of it.

Yaron Tomer, M.D.
The Marilyn and Stanley M. Katz Dean
Albert Einstein College of Medicine
Chief Academic Officer
Montefiore Einstein