Cedars-Sinai Health Sciences University has completed its first full year, highlighting progress in academic medicine and research. The university, which includes 16 residency programs and 76 fellowship programs, emphasized the integration of education and research throughout 2025.
“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.”
During 2025, Cedars-Sinai ranked first among independent hospitals in California for National Institutes of Health funding. This financial support enabled investigators to publish over 2,500 peer-reviewed papers and collaborate 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.
More than 860 students, postdoctoral researchers, residents, and fellows enrolled in university programs last fall. Notable new offerings included the Chuck Lorre Allied Health School, a Health Artificial Intelligence PhD program—which received accreditation from the Western Association of Schools and Colleges Senior College and University Commission—and a Master of Science in Regenerative Medicine program. The Center for Space Medicine Research also began offering space biomedicine courses as part of this curriculum.
Research at Cedars-Sinai produced several key findings in 2025:
– A new drug combination may reduce death risk by over 40% for men whose prostate cancer returns after treatment.
– Patients undergoing minimally invasive aortic valve replacement had similar long-term outcomes compared to those who had surgery.
– Immunotherapy improved outcomes for advanced liver cancer patients following transplant or tumor removal.
– Researchers found continued overdiagnosis of thyroid cancer without increased survival rates from aggressive screening.
– An artificial intelligence program was developed to detect early signs of tricuspid heart valve disease using images from common medical tests.
– Using ALS patient stem cells, Cedars-Sinai created a model that could help identify causes or treatments for the disease.
– The Center for Advanced Gerotherapeutics linked aged blood vessels to metabolic diseases such as diabetes.
The university secured 379 federal grants totaling $150 million. These included an $8 million international study on placental effects on heart health; $6.5 million to establish a Claude D. Pepper Older Americans Independence Center with UCLA and USC; more than $20 million from the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine for heart disease studies; and a $26 million award to compare surgical outcomes for people born with common heart conditions.
Faculty achievements were recognized nationally:
– Ravi Thadhani, MD, MPH was elected to the National Academy of Medicine.
– Shlomo Melmed was named Fellow by the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
– Eduardo Marbán, Jennifer Van Eyk, and Ananth Karumanchi received honors from the American Heart Association.
– Ze’ev Ronai earned an Outstanding Investigator Award from the National Cancer Institute; Armando E. Giuliano received a memorial lecture award.
– Pedro Sanchez was named Physician of the Year by the National Hispanic Medical Association.
Joyce So joined as chief genomics officer at Cedars-Sinai Guerin Children’s Center for Genomic Medicine. Cedars-Sinai also became a Center of Excellence in Rare Neuroimmune Disorders. Its Blood and Marrow Transplant Program exceeded expected one-year survival rates among adult transplant centers nationwide.
Additionally, Cedars-Sinai’s Biobank achieved international accreditation from the College of American Pathologists—one of only six California centers to do so.
Cedars-Sinai Medical Center is located in Los Angeles, California. Founded in 1902, it operates as both a treatment hospital—with over 50,000 admissions reported in its most recent annual report—and as a training facility under current president Thomas M. Priselac (https://www.cedars-sinai.org/about/annual-report.html).
