Mount Sinai Advances as Milestone 2 Awardee in XPRIZE Healthspan
Newswise — New York, NY — [August 11, 2026] —Researchers at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai are among the Milestone 2 Awardee teams in XPRIZE Healthspan, a $101 million global competition that challenges researchers to develop new approaches that help people live…
XPRIZE Healthspan is a 7-year global competition incentivizing teams to develop and test therapeutics that restore muscle, cognition, and immune function in adults aged 50 to 90 by a minimum of 10 years, with an ambitious goal of 20 years, to extend healthy life.
"By bringing together leading experts in immunology, neuroscience, metabolism, imaging, and clinical investigation, our researchers are furthering discoveries with the potential to redefine how we understand and promote healthy aging." The Mount Sinai NYC-Vita clinical trial is a first-of-its-kind study evaluating lifestyle and pharmaceutical.
What Happened
Merad is Dean for Translational Research and Therapeutic Innovation and Director of the Marc and Jennifer Lipschultz Precision Immunology Institute at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. She also serves as Co-Director of the new Colton Center for Autoimmunity, Chair.
Newswise — New York, NY — [August 11, 2026] —Researchers at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai are among the Milestone 2 Awardee teams in XPRIZE Healthspan, a $101 million global competition.
After emerging from an international field of semifinalists announced in May 2025, Mount Sinai’s NYC-Vita clinical trial team was selected as a Milestone 2 Award recipient, advancing to the XPRIZE Healthspan Finals and receiving.
Of those, 10—including the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai—will each be awarded $1 million as Milestone 2 Awardees.
Key Details
Advancing to the XPRIZE Healthspan Finals marks another important milestone in building Mount Sinai's comprehensive Healthspan Program. As the team continues the NYC-Vita clinical trial, it will seek additional collaborators and philanthropic support to expand the program and translate scientific discoveries into.
In addition to the $1 million Milestone 2 award, each awardee receives access to key clinical testing resources, bringing total milestone funding to $10 million, to accelerate development and clinical testing of its therapeutic.
The competition culminates in 2030, when XPRIZE will award a grand prize of up to $81 million — one of the largest incentive prizes ever offered for a single scientific breakthrough in health.
The Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai offers highly competitive MD, PhD, MD-PhD, and master’s degree programs, with enrollment of more than 1,200 students.
Why It Matters
“By integrating research, clinical expertise, and innovation, Mount Sinai is well positioned to translate scientific discoveries into new approaches that may help prevent or delay age-related decline and disease." XPRIZE announced 20 Finalist teams today at an awards ceremony in Salt Lake.
It has the largest graduate medical education program in the country, with more than 2,700 clinical residents and fellows training throughout the Health System.
The Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences offers 13 degree-granting programs, conducts innovative basic and translational research, and trains more than 470 postdoctoral research fellows.
What Reports Say
Coverage of the story so far points to:
More than 6,900 scientists, educators, and clinicians work within and across dozens of academic departments and multidisciplinary institutes with an emphasis on translational research and therapeutics.
Continued reporting by Newswise as more details emerge
