On this episode of Advances in Care, Erin Welsh revisits her recent conversation with Dr. Joel Gabre, a gastroenterologist at NewYork-Presbyterian and Columbia, to discuss the ongoing rise in colorectal cancer rates among younger individuals. Dr. Gabre shares an apparent trend in where colorectal cancer is being detected in younger patients, and findings from his research profiling early vs late onset tumors using single-cell RNA sequencing.

On this episode of Advances in Care, Erin Welsh revisits her conversations with Dr. Richard Friedman, a clinical psychiatrist at NewYork-Presbyterian and director of the Psychopharmacology Clinic at Weill Cornell Medicine, and Dr. David Hellerstein, a research psychiatrist at NewYork-Presbyterian and Columbia, about the challenges of conventional therapeutics like SSNRIs and SSRIs and how psychedelic compounds could provide different treatment mechanisms. They discuss the challenges of testing clinically testing psychedelics, and how different psychedelics could be an avenue of treatment for a range of mental health disorders.

On this episode of Advances in Care, host Erin Welsh revisits the story behind the GUARDIAN study, which screens thousands of newborn babies against rare disease by sequencing their genes, and looking for more conditions than any of the current standard screening panels. She hears from Dr. Jordan Orange on why genetic testing is a promising way of not only catching treatable rare diseases in infants but also expanding health equity and medical resources to marginalized populations, and Dr. Josh Milner on how early detections of severe combined immune deficiency indicated a higher prevalence than previously thought. Erin also speaks with Dr. Steven Lobritto Wilson’s disease and Dr. Eric Silver about Long QT Syndrome, and how identifying these conditions in newborns allows for simple treatment interventions that avoid damaging complications.

On this episode of Advances in Care, Erin Welsh is joined by Dr. Lawrence Lustig, otolaryngologist-in-chief at NewYork-Presbyterian and Columbia. Dr. Lustig has spent decades working to advance various interventions to treat genetic hearing loss and after years of research his team was the first to show that gene therapies could be effective at reversing genetic hearing loss in mouse models and eventually, humans. In April 2026, the FDA approved the first ever gene therapy for a rare form of genetic otoferlin deafness based on the work pushed forward by Dr. Lustig. Dr. Lustig shares how he and his team brought this approach to treating genetic deafness from mouse models, to humans, to FDA approval in record time, and why this new therapy will have a profound effect on treatments for hearing loss in the years to come.

On this episode of Advances in Care, Erin Welsh is joined by Dr. Barbara Ma, a medical oncologist at NewYork-Presbyterian who leads Cellular Therapy for Solid Tumors at Weill-Cornell Medicine. Dr. Ma and her team are at the forefront of utilizing a new therapy in the treatment of metastatic melanoma called tumor-infiltrating lymphocyte therapy—or TIL therapy—which received FDA approval in 2024. Patients receiving TIL therapy have seen tumors shrink in as little as one week after their first round of treatment. Dr. Ma discusses how her team is working to optimize TIL therapy by shortening the manufacturing process and reducing treatment-related toxicity to improve the patient experience. NewYork-Presbyterian and Weill Cornell Medicine is one of only a handful of medical centers to provide TIL therapy based on the complexity of this treatment approach, and also lead new research efforts to expand its potential for treating solid tumor cancers.

On this episode of Advances in Care, Dr. Leonardo Lopez, a psychiatrist at NewYork-Presbyterian and vice chair for inpatient services in the Department of Psychiatry at Weill Cornell Medicine, joins Erin Welsh to discuss a transformative but widely inaccessible psychiatric treatment: electroconvulsive therapy (ECT). Dr. Lopez describes the history of the treatment, how it has evolved since its inception to become one of the safest procedures done under general anesthesia, and the dramatic response rates. He also shares the transformative story of a pediatric patient with catatonia whose syndrome resolved after a 6-week ECT treatment plan allowing her to return to normal life activities. Despite the positive responses, ECT has carried a stigma born of its early practices and portrayals in media however, the modern version of this therapy is less than 5 minutes and is administered while patients are under general anesthesia, resulting in some of the fastest-acting psychiatric treatments for certain conditions, with minimal side effects.

On this episode of Advances in Care, Dr. Steven Lobritto, pediatric medical director for liver transplant at NewYork-Presbyterian and Columbia, joins host Erin Welsh to tell the story of the high-risk pediatric partial liver transplant to save the life of a two month old baby, after the center where the baby was originally treated deemed her inoperable. Dr. Lobritto explains how he and his team coordinated with the patient’s initial care team across the country to prepare the critically ill, 11-pound baby to fly to New York, and the intricacies of the surgical procedure. He also describes how this case demonstrates the need for universal surgical training in partial liver transplant, to help save the lives of more young patients.

On this episode of Advances in Care, Erin Welsh speaks with Dr. Howard Fine, neuro-oncologist at NewYork-Presbyterian and director of the Brain Tumor Center at Weill Cornell Medicine, about his groundbreaking research in glioblastoma. Dr. Fine’s lab is bioengineering cerebral organoids - called mini brains - from human embryonic stem cells through a platform called GLICO, which creates genetically matched, patient-specific brain models using an individual's immune cells and glioma cells. These miniature replicas allow researchers to map how a tumor may progress, and test new, individualized therapeutic approaches, offering a hope for transforming glioblastoma into a manageable disease and improving overall survivorship.

Many women in the US are having children at a later age than in the past, and with that comes an increased occurrence of common conditions like high blood pressure, diabetes, and high cholesterol that can put them at risk for heart disease while pregnant or afterwards. In fact, cardiovascular disease is now the leading cause of maternal mortality in the US, with pulmonary hypertension and peripartum cardiomyopathy posing significantly high risks. Dr. Jennifer Haythe joins Advances in Care host Erin Welsh to discuss the prevalence of medically complex pregnancies due to heart disease and the pioneering, multi-disciplinary teamwork she is leading through the cardio-obstetrics program at NewYork-Presbyterian and Columbia to successfully care for these patients.

Chiari malformation is a rare, potentially very serious condition that can easily be misdiagnosed without proper expertise. Untreated, complications like hydrocephalus, CSF leaks, cysts in the spinal cord, and nerve and muscle damage can develop but Dr. Jeffrey Greenfield, a pediatric neurosurgeon at NewYork-Presbyterian, is addressing the unmet need for better management of this disorder through the Chiari CARE program at Weill Cornell Medicine–a multidisciplinary care model involving neurology, pain management, neuropsychology, radiology, and other specialties. This initiative is paving the way towards providing full-spectrum care to patients and furthering research to develop better treatment pathways for the future. Dr. Greenfield joins Erin Welsh on this episode of Advances in Care to discuss the types of Chiari malformation and how NewYork-Presbyterian, an integrated academic hospital, is uniquely positioned to provide transitional care to patients, treating them from childhood through adulthood.