As a teenager, Joan Brugge expected to become a math teacher. Then her sister developed a fatal brain tumor, and Brugge shifted to devote her career to uncovering the fundamental workings of cancer.Now a world-renowned cell biologist, Brugge in

Road Less Traveled

May 5th, 2020 32m 38s

Note: This interview was recorded in 2019. For updates on Sequist's work during the COVID-19 pandemic, read our new Q&A.Traveling between New York, Albuquerque and Taos Pueblo while growing up and transitioning from computer chip engineering at

Neither Dazed nor Confused

Apr 23rd, 2020 39m 16s

Note: This interview was recorded in 2019. For updates on Inouye's work during the coronavirus pandemic and the link between COVID-19 and delirium, read our new Q&A.Each year, more than 7 million hospitalized people in the U.S. slide into delir

From Harvard to Hollywood

Jan 19th, 2018 44m 6s

Neal Baer is an award-winning television writer and producer—and a Harvard Medical School-trained pediatrician (MD ’96). Through his pioneering work on hit shows such as ER and Law and Order: Special Victims Unit, as well as his leadership in c

Chew on This

Feb 24th, 2017 20m 38s

Dentists take care of our mouths, and doctors take care of the rest of us—but it’s becoming increasingly clear that oral health and overall health are inextricably linked. In this month’s podcast, dentist and future physician Lisa Simon talks a

Blunt Scrutiny

Oct 21st, 2016 23m 28s

Staci Gruber, HMS associate professor of psychiatry and director of the Cognitive and Clinical Neuroimaging Core at McLean Hospital, describes what she and other researchers are learning about the effects of recreational and medical marijuana o

Challenging Common Knowledge

Aug 12th, 2016 26m 50s

Economist and physician Anupam “Bapu” Jena, the Ruth L. Newhouse Associate Professor of Health Care Policy at HMS, analyzes compelling health care issues ranging from physician behavior to prescription drug abuse to the economics of medical inn

Connecting the Dots

Jun 22nd, 2016 21m 1s

Jessica Halem, program manager of the LGBT Office within the Office for Diversity Inclusion and Community Partnership at HMS, shares some of the ways the Harvard Medical School community is working to reduce health care disparities for transgen

Culture Clash

Apr 8th, 2016 18m

Joseph Betancourt, HMS associate professor of medicine, shares stories about the challenges of cross-cultural communication in health care, both as a doctor today and as a child from a bilingual, bicultural household who accompanied his grandmo

Genetics in Space

Feb 2nd, 2016 24m 57s

Ting Wu, HMS professor of genetics, talks about ways scientists are striving to optimize astronauts' physical and mental health—and anticipating the biomedical challenges ahead as humankind considers long-term space travel.And in this episode'

The A-Word

Oct 27th, 2015 18m 48s

Reisa Sperling, HMS professor of neurology at Brigham and Women's Hospital, shares her family's personal connection with Alzheimer's disease and describes ongoing research into early diagnosis and intervention.And in this episode's abstract, r

Genetics of Sleep

Sep 23rd, 2015 19m 15s

Dragana Rogulja, assistant professor of neurobiology at HMS, runs a sleep lab in which hundreds of thousands of fruit flies are studied as they snooze. Rogulja’s goal is to identify genes involved in sleep that are also conserved in human being

Object Lessons

Aug 21st, 2015 23m 41s

Dominic Hall, curator of the Warren Anatomical Museum in the Center for the History of Medicine at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, talks about how individual medical artifacts can bring to life multiple narratives and inform today’

Rx: Poetry

Jul 16th, 2015 26m 16s

Physician and poet Rafael Campo describes how medicine and poetry are interconnected at the most basic levels. According to this HMS associate professor of medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, language and metaphor reveal medical a

The Evolution of Learning

Jun 24th, 2015 24m 24s

Exponentially increasing changes in medical practice call for educators to adapt to better prepare future generations of doctors. Edward M. Hundert, dean for medical education and the Daniel D. Federman, M.D. Professor in Residence of Global He

Medicine and Morality

Jun 10th, 2015 21m 19s

Robert Truog, a Harvard Medical School professor at Boston Children’s Hospital and director of the HMS Center for Bioethics, teaches doctors and nurses to become more aware of the ethical decisions they make every day—including the conscious an

Your Digital Phenotype

May 20th, 2015 15m 55s

John Brownstein, HMS associate professor of pediatrics at Boston Children’s Hospital, explains why your most important Facebook friend might be your doctor. Brownstein, a computational epidemiologist, also describes how our online behavior form

Digging into Ancient DNA

Apr 15th, 2015 16m 35s

David Reich, professor of genetics at HMS, studies modern and ancient DNA to probe human history and learn about health and disease. In this podcast, he shares his excitement about new genetic technologies and tells the story of his winding pat

The Future of Science

Mar 15th, 2015 24m 54s

For many students and young researchers today, pursuing a career in science can seem more frightening than energizing. A wealth of qualified postdocs seeking a limited number of academic positions, ever-shrinking funding, and pressure to publis

Doppelgänger

Dec 21st, 2013 1m 58s

"When a parent is also a physician, family stories often become stories about medicine, as exemplified by those told to Tenley Albright, Class of 1961, for the article “Families” in the Autumn 2013 issue of Harvard Medicine magazine. As a daugh

Beyond Belief

May 28th, 2013 1h 23m

Our individual belief system plays a role in many aspects of our life, but have you considered how a belief system can impact your overall health? A relatively unexplored area of study, the individual belief system is increasingly becoming the

The Methodical Adventurer

Apr 29th, 2013 7m 21s

Amy Wagers, professor of stem cell and regenerative biology at Harvard and Joslin Diabetes Center, is motivated by both the prospect of treating disease and the thrill of discovery. Watch for the Winter 2013 issue of Harvard Medicine magazine f

It’s All In Your Head

Apr 5th, 2013 1h 31m

As the epicenter of the nervous system, the brain is a complex and fascinating organ. Our brains are the engines that drive our bodies to process information and communicate with the world. Scientists today are making groundbreaking strides in

Psychosocial Healing

Nov 12th, 2012 10m 4s

Plastic surgeon Sumner Slavin has pioneered methods of tissue reconstruction for patients—including women with breast cancer—to restore body parts to a more usual appearance. After spending time in the Middle East, he also started a fellowship

Heart Matters

Oct 4th, 2012 10m 15s

Jonathan and Christine Seidman —both professors at Harvard Medical School—run a household and a lab together. They’ve been collaborating for decades to explore the causes of hereditary heart disease, especially hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, and