Bruce E. Sands, MD, MS

Bruce E. Sands, MD, MS, is the Dr. Burrill B. Crohn Professor of Medicine, the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, and chief of the Division of Gastroenterology, the Mount Sinai Health System, New York, NY.

He was awarded his BA and MD from Boston University, and he trained in internal medicine at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. After completing a GI fellowship at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), he joined the faculty of Harvard Medical School and served as the acting chief of the Gastrointestinal Unit at MGH before moving to Mount Sinai in 2010 as chief of the Dr. Henry D. Janowitz Division of Gastroenterology.

Dr Sands is an expert in the management of inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD) and has earned an international reputation for his care of patients with complex and refractory disease. He is widely recognized for his innovative treatment of Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis, and for his expertise in the clinical investigation of new therapeutics. His research also explores IBD epidemiology and includes the creation of a population-based cohort of IBD in Rhode Island, a project funded by both the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

He has served as an associate editor for the journal Gastroenterology and has published more than 350 original manuscripts in leading journals such as Gut, Gastroenterology, and The American Journal of Gastroenterology. He was the lead investigator of the landmark studies ACCENT II, UNIFI, and VARSITY, published in The New England Journal of Medicine, and SEAVUE, published in The Lancet.

In 2016, Dr Sands was awarded the Henry D. Janowitz Lifetime Achievement Award from the Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation of America, that organization’s highest honor. In 2023, he was the recipient of the Jacobi Medallion, Mount Sinai’s highest award, given for distinguished contributions to the field of medicine or extraordinary service to the hospital, health system, school of medicine, or alumni community.

Dr Sands is a past chair of the Clinical Research Alliance of the Crohn's & Colitis Foundation of America and served as chair of the Immunology, Microbiology & Inflammatory Bowel Diseases Section of the American Gastroenterological Association. Additionally, he was chair of the International Organization for the Study of Inflammatory Bowel Diseases.