Overview

Eight institutions representing New York’s biomedical ecosystem are competing in the STAT Madness bracket-style competition for the most impactful health research of the past year. Of the 50 institutions selected, New York and Massachusetts are tied for the most representation of any single state. From Manhattan’s world-renowned medical centers to the University of Rochester, the following entries span cancer treatment, neuroscience, Alzheimer’s disease, maternal health, diabetes, and even the evolutionary origins of human speech:

Columbia University — AI Cell Modeling
Scientists at Columbia, in collaboration with Stanford, developed Squidiff, an AI framework that predicts how cells respond to drugs, environmental changes, and other stimuli. Trained on large-scale single-cell data, the model was validated in scenarios including drug responses in glioblastoma and blood vessel organoid development. The work represents a significant step toward computational simulation of biological processes at scale.

Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai — Smarter Alzheimer’s Scans
Mount Sinai researchers, working with partners in Israel and Canada, identified that amyloid oligomers — not the fibril plaques typically tracked by PET scans — are the structures most closely linked to aging-related cognitive decline. The team developed an oligomer-detecting PET tracer capable of flagging these harder-to-detect structures in the living brain, potentially allowing physicians to better time and target Alzheimer’s treatments.

Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center — Two Entries
MSK is one of a handful of institutions with two entries in this year’s tournament. In the first, researchers showed that immunotherapy alone can drive many mismatch repair-deficient (dMMR) tumors — which span multiple cancer types — into remission, sparing patients surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation. In a landmark trial of 103 patients, 80% required no additional treatment. Three rectal cancer patients later conceived and delivered healthy children, an outcome impossible under standard treatment regimens.
MSK’s second entry, conducted jointly with Weill Cornell Medicine and UC Irvine, focuses on Parkinson’s disease. The team generated dopamine-producing neurons from stem cells and transplanted them into 12 patients in the first-in-human trial of its kind. After 18 months, the transplanted cells had successfully integrated into the brain with no serious side effects — results strong enough for the FDA to approve the start of a Phase 3 trial.

NYU College of Dentistry — Targeting Gut Pain
NYU researchers, working alongside colleagues at Stanford, zeroed in on PAR2, a receptor on pain-sensitive nerves in the gut. By screening gut microbes, the team identified a bacterial enzyme from B. fragilis that activates PAR2 to signal pain. A companion study then used nanoparticles to deliver an experimental drug directly to this hard-to-reach receptor, showing promise for reducing gut pain in cells and mouse models — opening a new avenue for treating abdominal pain disorders.

NYU Rory Meyers College of Nursing — Nurse Staffing and C-Sections
A large-scale study led by NYU Nursing, in partnership with UCSF, Mercy Hospital, and Trinity Health, demonstrated that adequate nurse staffing during childbirth is directly associated with lower rates of cesarean sections — which carry greater health risks than vaginal birth. Surveying nearly 2,800 nurses across 193 hospitals, the team found C-section rates were 11% lower in hospitals where at least one nurse was assigned per laboring mother, and two nurses were present at delivery.

The Rockefeller University — The Genetics of Human Speech
Rockefeller scientists used CRISPR to engineer mice carrying a human-specific variant of NOVA1, a protein expressed in the nervous system. Mice with the variant showed changes in brain regions linked to vocal behavior, as well as alterations in vocalizations. Because this variant is absent from Neanderthals and most non-human species, the findings shed new light on the genetic underpinnings of spoken language and may have implications for studying language-related disorders in humans.

University of Rochester — How the Brain Cleans Itself During Sleep
Researchers at the University of Rochester — co-discoverers of the glymphatic system — have now identified the mechanism that drives the brain’s waste-clearing process during sleep. Using a novel monitoring tool, the team found that pulses of the chemical norepinephrine during non-REM sleep cause blood vessels to rhythmically contract and expand, pumping cerebrospinal fluid through the brain to flush out the toxic proteins linked to Alzheimer’s disease. The study also raises concerns that the sleep drug Ambien may suppress this critical self-cleaning function.

Weill Cornell Medicine — Two Entries
Weill Cornell also brings two entries to the competition. In one, scientists developed a novel strategy for vascularizing insulin-producing islet cells — a longstanding obstacle to effective diabetes treatment. By co-mingling islets with genetically engineered endothelial cells, the team created robust blood vessel networks that reversed high blood sugar in diabetic mice for up to 20 weeks, advancing both organoid drug screening and the prospect of functional islet transplants.
In the second entry, Weill Cornell researchers — alongside colleagues at MSK and UC San Diego — unraveled how small extracellular vesicles secreted by lung macrophages trigger dangerous blood clots in cancer patients. Blocking this pathway in mice prevented clotting without causing bleeding, and surprisingly, also reduced cancer metastasis. Elevated vesicle levels detected weeks before clots formed in pancreatic cancer patients suggest a potential new biomarker for predicting and preventing clotting risk.