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 investigates how cancers form, spread and become resistant to therapy. Whether she's probing the startling variety of cells within tumors or building 3D models to study cancer development in structures that more closely resemble the human body, Brugge continues to illuminate cancers of the breast, ovaries, lungs and more. In this episode, Brugge tells the ..read more

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 Intel to enrolling in medical school, Thomas Sequist has never quite followed a straightforward path. After training in primary care and health care policy, Sequist found his way toward pursuing a great passion: improving health care quality and equity for all patients, with a special focus on American Indian communities. Now, Sequist helps new gen ..read more

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 delirium: an acute state of confusion that raises risk of serious health complications and death. Only a few decades ago, medical professionals believed they couldn't do anything to prevent delirium. Then Sharon Inouye proved otherwise. Her programs, adopted by hundreds of hospitals, have helped reduce cases of the condition by an estimated 40 perce ..read more

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 connecting media producers with doctors and scientists, Baer has helped shape public perceptions of medicine, illness and health disparities, with a special focus on issues that disproportionately affect LGBTQ communities. In this month’s podcast, Baer recounts his unconventional journey and explains how storytelling is central to being both a writer and ..read more

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 about the potential benefits and challenges of bringing dentistry and medicine back together after a 150-year separation. A graduate of the Harvard School of Dental Medicine, Simon is currently the HSDM Fellow in Oral Health and Medicine Integration and a medical student at Harvard Medical School ..read more

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 on brain structure, brain function and quality of life in teens and adults. Along the way, Gruber counters common misconceptions about marijuana research and shares many of the puns that are inevitable in her line of work ..read more

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 transgender patients. Efforts range from medical education and faculty training to research programs to environmental modifications, such as on doctor’s office intake forms and bathroom signs ..read more

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 and humanistic insights into the body in ways that go far beyond data and checklists. And in this episode’s abstract, researchers in the lab of HMS professor and Wyss Institute core faculty member Pamela Silver transplant a circadian clock into a non-circadian species ..read more

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's abstract, a study led by Brittany Charlton at HMS and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health offers reassurance for women and their health care providers about the safety of taking oral contraceptives during or just before pregnancy ..read more

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, researchers in the lab of George Church use the gene-editing tool CRISPR to inactivate retroviruses in the pig genome with the hope of one day making organs safer for transplant into humans ..read more