NYU Grossman School of Medicine

06/01/2026

Five years after surgery, a personalized cancer vaccine may still be protecting melanoma patients from recurrence.

New five-year data from the KEYNOTE-942 trial — led by Dr. Janice Mehnert of NYU Langone's Perlmutter Cancer Center — suggest that combining intismeran, an individualized mRNA neoantigen vaccine, with standard pembrolizumab therapy may offer durable protection in patients with resected high-risk melanoma.

At 60 months, recurrence-free survival was 68.8% in the combination arm versus 49.1% with pembrolizumab alone — a 49% reduction in recurrence or death risk. Distant metastasis-free survival risk was reduced by 59%.

Each vaccine was built from the patient's own tumor — encoded with up to 34 patient-specific neoantigens — designed to train T cells to recognize and attack returning cancer cells.

A phase 3 trial is fully enrolled. Results are anticipated soon.

Presented at | Published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. Read more ⤵️ https://bit.ly/4x2ndFw

📍 NYU Grossman School of Medicine | Perlmutter Cancer Center

NYU Langone Health study shows melanoma patients that vaccine therapy can demonstrably reduce their risk of having their cancer return. Learn more.

05/27/2026

Colorectal cancer is now among the leading causes of cancer-related death in younger adults—and no one fully understands why.

NYU Grossman School of Medicine's Mia Petljak, PhD, and her collaborators are investigating a compelling hypothesis: that microplastics, found everywhere from drinking water to human bloodstreams, may be leaving detectable mutational signatures in tumor DNA from patients with early-onset colorectal cancer. The ultimate goal is personalized cancer prevention: screen your DNA, identify your exposures, know your risk before disease develops.

Watch the full video to learn more about this research.

05/27/2026

Colorectal cancer is now among the leading causes of cancer-related death in younger adults—and no one fully understands why.

NYU Grossman School of Medicine’s Mia Petljak, PhD, and her collaborators are investigating a compelling hypothesis: that microplastics, found everywhere from drinking water to human bloodstreams, may be leaving detectable mutational signatures in tumor DNA from patients with early-onset colorectal cancer. The ultimate goal is personalized cancer prevention: screen your DNA, identify your exposures, know your risk before disease develops.

Watch the full video to learn more about this research.

05/26/2026

Dr. Marcus D. Goncalves, the newly appointed director of NYU Langone Health’s Holman Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism, shares his vision for advancing endocrinology care and research to meet evolving patient needs.

Under his leadership, the division is expanding programs in diabetes, metabolic bone disease, and pituitary disorders while strengthening basic-to-translational research—connecting scientific discovery more directly to patient care. Efforts are also focused on improving access, integrating data like continuous glucose monitoring into the EMR, and addressing disparities in care delivery.

Read more at Physician Focus ⤵️

05/22/2026

A three-minute smartphone game may help identify depression as reliably as standard clinical tests, according to a new study led by researchers at NYU Grossman School of Medicine.

Published in PNAS, the research found that people previously diagnosed with major depressive disorder stopped taking pleasure in a simple foraging game about 50 percent sooner than healthy participants, a pattern that appeared to reflect a measurable disruption in how the brain sets reward expectations.

The game works by tracking what researchers call the "reference point," the threshold at which a person decides whether an activity is still worth pursuing. In participants with MDD, that threshold appeared to be significantly elevated and, notably, less flexible in response to changing conditions, a pattern that correlated with depression severity.

"Our behavioral game gives us clues to what is happening in the brains of patients with depression, which we hope will let us identify them as reliably as finding heart disease by taking someone's blood pressure," said co-senior study author Paul Glimcher, PhD, chair of the Department of Neuroscience and director of the Institute for Translational Neuroscience at NYU Grossman School of Medicine.

Researchers also found that patients with MDD appeared less able to adapt their reference points as circumstances changed, which they describe as a potential therapeutic target currently under investigation.

If validated in further clinical testing, the tool could offer a faster, lower-cost way to screen for and monitor depression remotely, without requiring repeated in-person visits.

🔗 Read more about this research ⤵️

A new study from NYU Langone shows that a computer game quickly identified patients with depression. Learn more.

05/20/2026

157 new doctors. One historic class.

On Monday, May 11th, the NYU Grossman School of Medicine Class of 2026 crossed the stage and into the next chapter of medicine.

This year’s ceremony carried special significance: the Class of 2026 is the first to include graduates from the 3+1 Personalized Pathway Curriculum, launched in 2023 as an expansion of our pioneering accelerated three-year MD pathway. Today, all NYU Grossman School of Medicine students graduate in three years or may choose an optional fourth year for research or dual-degree training.

The Class of 2026 carries forward not only exceptional training, but also the compassion, resilience, and sense of purpose that define great physicians.

Congratulations, doctors. 🎓

05/20/2026

Treating breast cancer during pregnancy requires thoughtful coordination, precision, and compassion. At Perlmutter Cancer Center at NYU Langone, a multidisciplinary team came together to care for a patient diagnosed in her first trimester—carefully balancing timely cancer treatment with fetal safety.

Surgery was performed at the end of the first trimester, allowing chemotherapy to begin safely in the second, with every step tailored to protect both mother and baby without compromising care.

“We’re uniquely equipped to provide this level of care, with a range of experts who treat the patient, not just the disease,” says Elizabeth Comen, MD.

The patient delivered a healthy baby at 39 weeks and went on to complete her treatment postpartum.

Read more ⤵️

A multidisciplinary NYU Langone Health team delivered curative breast cancer treatment during pregnancy, ensuring timely care and decisive interventions to optimize both obstetric and oncologic outcomes. Learn more.

05/19/2026

For years, patients with obstructive hypertrophic cardiomyopathy chose between lifelong cardiac medication or open-heart surgery through a large chest incision. NYU Langone Health's HCM Program now offers a third option—and it's the only program in New York doing it.

In a first for the institution, robotic cardiac surgeon Joshua A. Scheinerman, MD, performed a totally endoscopic robotic septal myectomy through the left atrium and mitral valve. The procedure eliminated the patient's outflow tract obstruction, addressed years of atrial fibrillation with intraoperative cryoablation, and allowed him to go home four days later—without a sternotomy, without ongoing cardiac myosin inhibitor therapy, and with just one follow-up visit per year.

NYU Langone Health's HCM Program is now one of the few in the country to offer this approach for select patients.

Read more about this complex case ⤵️

The procedure makes NYU Langone’s high-volume, dedicated HCM Program one of the few in the country to offer robotic septal myectomy for obstructive HCM. Learn more.

05/18/2026

Congratulations to Dr. Eric Oermann, recipient of the 2026 Biomedical Informatics Educator Award at the Vilcek Institute of Graduate Biomedical Sciences at NYU Grossman School of Medicine.

"The most important thing I hope my mentees take away from me is a passion for science."

Dr. Oermann is an Associate Professor of Neurosurgery, Radiology, and Data Science, Director of the Health AI Research Lab, and Associate Program Director of the Neurosurgery Residency Program at NYU Langone Health. He was recognized for his outstanding commitment to mentoring MS students and his belief that great teaching is not just instruction, but doing the work together.

The Vilcek Institute of Graduate Biomedical Sciences at NYU Grossman School of Medicine trains the next generation of researchers pushing the boundaries of biomedical discovery.

05/14/2026

The plastic in your food packaging, cosmetics, and household products may be connected to one of the leading causes of infant death.

Researchers at NYU Grossman School of Medicine have published the first global estimate linking DEHP, a widely used plastic additive, to preterm birth — finding it may be responsible for roughly 1.97 million early births and 74,000 newborn deaths in 2018 alone. The study, published in eClinicalMedicine, calls for urgent oversight of phthalates as a class, not chemical by chemical.

Read more about this research: https://bit.ly/4dhrBr6