Academic Medicine Accelerated at Cedars-Sinai Health Sciences University

Cedars-Sinai Health Sciences Universitymarked its first full year in 2025, celebrating the faculty and learners who are advancing academic achievement across medical disciplines.

"Innovation is the engine that drives our health system," said Jeffrey A. Golden, MD, executive vice dean of Research and Education and director of the Burns and Allen Research Institute. "This engine is powered by the learners training in our Health Sciences University and the faculty delivering exceptional medical care and conducting groundbreaking research."

A Year of Impact and Growth

In 2025, the university-which houses 16 residency programs and 76 fellowship programs-demonstrated the power of combining education and research.

Cedars-Sinai ranked No. 1 in California among independent hospitals in National Institutes of Health funding in 2025. The funding helped support investigators and teams who published more than 2,500 peer-reviewed papers and collaborated on more than 2,600 research projects.

"We are proud of how our scientists, academic physicians and allied health professionals have integrated clinical, basic and translational research with education in our academic medical center," said Golden, the Linda and Jim Lippman Distinguished Chair in Academic Medicine.

Here, the Cedars-Sinai Newsroomspotlights major Cedars-Sinai Health Sciences University achievements during 2025.

Shaping Future Leaders

More than 860 students, postdoctoral researchers, medical residents and fellows enrolled in university programslast fall:

• The first learners enrolled in the Chuck Lorre Allied Health School, Health Artificial Intelligence PhD program and the Master of Science in Regenerative Medicine program.
• The Health AI PhD program-the first to combine interdisciplinary training with hands-on clinical data experience-earned accreditationfrom the Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC) Senior College and University Commission.
• The new Center for Space Medicine Research began offeringspace biomedicine courses as part of the regenerative medicine curriculum.

Driving Research Breakthroughs

Investigators uncovered vital health insights:

• Men whose prostate cancer returns after surgery or radiation therapy may benefitfrom a new drug combination shown in clinical trials to reduce the risk of death by more than 40%.
• People who underwent a minimally invasive procedure to have their aortic valve replaced had similar health outcomesyears after treatment compared with people who had surgery.
• Patients with advanced liver cancer who receive immunotherapy to shrink their tumors have seen improved outcomesafter liver transplant or tumor removal.
• Investigators provided new evidencethat thyroid cancer continues to be overdiagnosed and that aggressive screening and treatment of thyroid cancer have not led to higher survival rates.
• An artificial intelligence program trained to review images from a common medical test can detect early signsof tricuspid heart valve disease and may help doctors diagnose and treat patients sooner.
• Using stem cells from patients with ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis), Cedars-Sinai has created a lifelike modelof the mysterious and fatal disease that could help identify a cause of the illness as well as effective treatments.
• The Center for Advanced Gerotherapeutics found that aged blood vesselsmay play a key role in the development of metabolic diseases like diabetes.

Securing Critical Funding

The university received 379 federal grants totaling $150 million to support future discoveries. These grants include:

• $8 million for an international study led by Cedars-Sinai to investigate how the placenta affectsthe heart health of mothers and babies-and whether this knowledge can predict risk of cardiovascular disease
• $6.5 million from the National Institutes of Health and the National Institute on Aging for Cedars-Sinai, UCLA and USC to establisha Claude D. Pepper Older Americans Independence Center in Los Angeles
• More than $20 millionfrom the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine to investigators from the Smidt Heart Institute to study potential treatments for heart failure and an inherited type of heart disease
• A $26 million award from the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute to studywhether people born with a common heart condition have better outcomes from open-heart surgery or a minimally invasive procedure

Honoring Leadership and Quality

Faculty members continue to earn national recognition for their contributions in medicine:

• Ravi Thadhani, MD, MPH, an internationally respected expert in nephrology and preeclampsia, was electeda member of the National Academy of Medicine.
• The American Association for the Advancement of Science electedShlomo Melmed, MB, ChB, a leader in the field of endocrinology, as a Fellow.
• Eduardo Marbán, MD, PhD, Jennifer Van Eyk, PhD, and Ananth Karumanchi, MD, from the Smidt Heart Institute at Cedars-Sinai earned prestigious honorsfrom the American Heart Association, recognizing their achievements in cardiovascular and hypertension research.
• Prominent cancer investigator Ze'ev Ronai, PhD, receivedthe Outstanding Investigator Award from the National Cancer Institute, and pioneering surgical oncologist Armando E. Giuliano, MD, receivedthe William L. McGuire Memorial Lecture Award.
• Pedro Sanchez, MD, a pediatric geneticist, was namedPhysician of the Year by the National Hispanic Medical Association.
• Cedars-Sinai welcomedits first chief genomics officer and medical director of the newly established Center for Genomic Medicine at Cedars-Sinai Guerin Children's: Joyce So, MD, PhD.
• Cedars-Sinai was nameda Center of Excellence in Rare Neuroimmune Disorders and its Blood and Marrow Transplant Program became one of 12 among 172 adult transplant programs where patient survivalone year after transplant exceeded expectations.
• Through its Biobank and Research Pathology Resource, Cedars-Sinai became one of only six medical centers in California to earn international accreditationfrom the College of American Pathologists.

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