Igor Galynker, MD

Dr. Igor Galynker, MD, PhD, is the Associate Chairman for Research in the Department of Psychiatry at Mount Sinai Beth Israel, and is the Founder and Director of the Richard and Cynthia Zirinsky Family Center for Bipolar. He is a Professor of Psychiatry at the Icahn School of Medicine. He received his PhD in Chemistry from Columbia University and his medical degree from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, where he was elected into the Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Medical Society and completed his psychiatry residency at Mount Sinai Medical Center. He has since worked at Mount Sinai Beth Israel in Manhattan (previously Beth Israel Medical Center), where he is the Associate Chairman for Research in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences.

In 2006, Galynker founded the Family Center for Bipolar (FCB), which is part of the Zirinsky Mood Disorders Center and is a clinical and research center treating children, adolescents, and adults. The Center has become a Center of Excellence in the Mount Sinai Health System and has been profiled in the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. He is also the Director of the Suicide Research and Prevention Laboratory at Mount Sinai, where ongoing research includes development and validation of scales to determine imminent suicidal risk of patients.

His clinical and research interests include behavioral addictions, bipolar disorder, suicide prevention, and the role of family in psychiatric illness. He has published on these topics in professional journals and in the lay press and has authored a book on family involvement in psychiatric treatment.

Dr. Galynker’s primary research includes the development of a proposed suicide-specific diagnosis, Suicide Crisis Syndrome. Interviews on this topic with MDedge can be found below:
• https://www.mdedge.com/podcasts/psychcast/dr-igor-galynker-identifying-suicide-crisis-syndrome-part-1
• https://www.mdedge.com/podcasts/psychcast/dr-igor-galynker-identifying-suicide-crisis-syndrome-part-2

Active funding:
AFSP Grant Galynker (PI) 03/01/20-02/28/22
The goal of this project is to create and test the feasibility and efficacy of the first multi-modal virtual human patient interaction (VHI) Emotional Self-Awareness (ESA) training program for clinicians working with patients at risk for suicide.
Role: PI

R34-NIMH Grant Galynker & Foster (Co-PI’s) 04/04/2019 – 03/31/2021
The goal of this project is to evaluate the impact of clinicians’ training in emotional self-awareness (ESA) on their patients’ suicidal outcomes, as assessed by the severity of patient suicidal ideation and of the suicide crisis syndrome.
Role: Co-PI

Language: English and Russian

Selected Publications:
Barzilay, S., Yaseen, Z. S., Hawes, M., Kopeykina, I., Ardalan, F., Rosenfield, P., . . . Galynker, I. (2018). Determinants and Predictive Value of Clinician Assessment of Short‐Term Suicide Risk. Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior, 49(2), 614-626.

Bloch-Elkouby, S., Gorman, B., Schuck, A., Barzilay, S., Calati, R., Cohen, L. J., . . . Galynker, I. (2020). The suicide crisis syndrome: A network analysis. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 67(5), 595-607.

Calati, R., Cohen, L. J., Schuck, A., Levy, D., Bloch-Elkouby, S., Barzilay, S., . . . Galynker, I. (2020). The Modular Assessment of Risk for Imminent Suicide (MARIS): A validation study of a novel tool for suicide risk assessment. Journal of Affective Disorders, 263, 121-128.

Calati, R., Nemeroff, C. B., Lopez-Castroman, J., Cohen, L. J., & Galynker, I. (2020). Candidate Biomarkers of Suicide Crisis Syndrome: What to Test Next? A Concept Paper. International Journal of Neuropsychopharmacology, 23(3), 192-205.

Galynker, I., Yaseen, Z. S., Cohen, A., Benhamou, O., Hawes, M., & Briggs, J. (2017). Prediction of suicidal behavior in high risk psychiatric patients using an assessment of acute suicidal state: the suicide crisis inventory. Depression and anxiety, 34(2), 147-158.