The Mount Sinai Health System in New York will create the Mount Sinai Institute of Technology with $5 million in funding from the New York City Economic Development Corporation.

The funding will be used to transform existing space on the campus of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai – the academic medical institution of the Mount Sinai Health System – into several facilities for the technology institute.

Mount Sinai executives, who announced the project with city officials this week, said the overarching goal is to radically transform biomedicine through the discovery, design, development and delivery of entrepreneurially-driven, technology-based solutions to critical unmet medical needs, particularly in the current era of healthcare reform.

[See also: New York initiative aims to create hub for health IT jobs.]

The new facility’s anticipated completion date will be in the latter part of 2014. New degree offerings related to MSIT commenced during the 2013-14 academic year.

“This is another milestone in Mount Sinai’s evolution from a stand-alone hospital founded more than 160 years ago to the world-class academic medical center it is today,” said Kenneth L. Davis, CEO and president of the Mount Sinai Health System, in a statement.  “To our physicians, researchers and students, the word ‘innovation’ is more than just a buzzword – it is a driving force in everything we do, from our classrooms and laboratories to our operating suites. The Mount Sinai Institute of Technology will serve as an incubator for innovation, helping to solve the medical problems facing our society.”

[See also: Mount Sinai kicks up personalized care.]

MSIT will initially be organized around three primary technology categories:

• Digital health technologies including mobile health, wireless health, Big Data, cloud computing, social networking, scientific computing, and scientific and clinical simulation;
• Biologically integrated technologies including tissue engineering, sensors, microprocessors, robotics, mechatronics, MEMs, and microfluidics; and
• Prescription technologies including drug repurposing, drug delivery, nanomedicine, and medical devices.

Key facilities exclusive to MSIT will include the following:

• Rapid Prototyping Center, which will be housed in the Atran-Berg Research Building and which will support state-of-the-art equipment such as laser cutters, 3-D printers, CNC micro-milling machines, spin coaters, mask aligners, profilometers, chemical hoods, clean benches, and CAD workstations;
• The MSIT Innovation Lab, to be located in the Annenberg Building and which will have meeting spaces, a small-scale prototyping space, CAD workstations, and virtual communications infrastructure; and
• The MSIT Teaching Facility, also to be located in the Annenberg Building and which will have electronically-enabled classrooms, student meeting spaces, and computer-driven visualization technology.

Working in conjunction with Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, the MSIT will feature educational offerings, including the recently launched PhD in Design, Technology, and Entrepreneurship. MSIT will also explore support for other degree programs, including the potential creation of a technology development track in the existing Master of Public Health degree program and a new Masters in Biomedical Informatics.

MSIT’s entrepreneurial activities, including the 4D Technology Development Program, will be managed through the Center for Technology, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship – cTIE – at Mount Sinai.