<\/p>\n
Sensors underneath a raised track in a new Stony Brook Medicine clinical trials unit in Commack can\u00a0measure brain functions. Credit: Rick Kopstein<\/p>\n
‘An outreach area’<\/p>\n
With the new facility, Stony Brook hopes to attract more patients, faculty and sponsors for clinical trials, Hedayati said. Commack was chosen not only for its central position on Long Island, but the fact that research efforts will take place under the same roof as Stony Brook Medicine\u2019s Advanced Specialty Care<\/a> facility, home to specialties that includes the World Trade Center Health and Wellness Program<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is in an outreach area; we have our specialty advanced care \u2026 ranging from infectious disease, family practice, cardiology,\u201d Hedayati said.<\/p>\n The Commack facility includes a cardiopulmonary exercise room to measure \u201cpulmonary fitness and oxygenation during exercise,\u201d a room for outpatient procedures, including breast biopsies, a wet lab, a three-bay infusion suite for chemotherapeutic trials and a dozen exam and consultation rooms, Hedayati said. This infrastructure will allow Stony Brook to enlist people of all ages for clinical trials to treat infectious, kidney, lung and neurological diseases and mental illness.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re opening doors to discovery and to hope,\u201d Wertheim said. \u201cThis space represents the bridge between groundbreaking research that we do in the laboratory, and the patients and the families that we serve every day right here in our communities.\u201d<\/p>\n Stony Brook Medicine’s new clinical trials unit is housed in a building at 500 Commack Road in Commack, NY on Nov. 10, 2025. Credit: Rick Kopstein<\/p>\n Spaces for Alzheimer’s work<\/p>\n The new Commack facility also includes two spaces \u2014 a floor maze and a large single-lane walking track embedded with pressure sensors \u2014 dedicated to detecting early signs of Alzheimer’s, according to Dr. Joe Verghese, chair of the department of neurology at Stony Brook Medicine, whom Hedayati described as the new facility\u2019s \u201canchor tenant.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhat we can do here is identify certain gate patterns and brain patterns that predict falls,\u201d to which people with Alzheimer\u2019s are more prone, Verghese said, standing next to the massive track. Patients will wear a cap outfitted with sensors to detect brain activity while the sensors beneath their feet provide \u201cabout 100 different variables about \u2026 their walking patterns,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n