Science & Health

Harvard chemical biologist Greg Verdine, a force behind a promising experimental treatment for pancreatic cancer, learned the value of improvisational thinking from a devastating family accident.

Professor of organismic and evolutionary biology Mandë Holford uncovers the secrets of venomous sea snails and cephalopods, their toxins, and how those compounds might be turned into medicines for human diseases.

A gift from Lisa and Mark Schwartz AB ’76, MBA ’79, MPP ’79 will provide financial aid to MD-PhD students in the Harvard-MIT Program in Health Sciences and Technology.

Devorah Kranz PhD ’25 brings the creativity and holistic thinking she developed growing up in a Hasidic Jewish community to research on the neurological health of children. By identifying biomarkers of Rett syndrome, Kranz is deepening scientists’ understanding of a much more common condition: autism.

A team led by Harvard bioengineer David Mooney has developed an “Implantable Living Materials” platform, which aims to provide synthetically engineered, living cells that can sense injury or disease-associated conditions in their environment and deliver the right amount of a therapeutic molecule directly to where it’s needed to aid recovery.

A 10-tone skin scale developed by Harvard sociologist Ellis Monk is reshaping medical diagnostics worldwide—helping health care providers more accurately detect conditions in patients with darker skin and saving lives in the process.

After three decades of research, Harvard Medical School professor Merit Cudkowicz achieved a breakthrough in the fight against ALS. A new study co-led by Cudkowicz found that the drug tofersen can radically slow—and in some cases reverse—the course of the disease in a small subset of patients with a rare genetic variant, proving for the first time that this illness can be stopped.

An experimental gene therapy for people with an inherited form of deafness led to durable hearing improvements, according to new study by researchers from Harvard Medical School, Mass Eye and Ear, and Fudan University. 

Harvard Medical School professor Stuart Orkin and National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute researcher Swee Lay Thein received the 2026 Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences for their work leading to transformative treatments for two inherited blood disorders: sickle cell disease and beta-thalassemia.

Three Harvard Medical School students have been awarded the Paul and Daisy Soros Fellowships for New Americans—a merit-based award that supports outstanding immigrants and children of immigrants pursuing graduate education in the United States—in recognition of their work advancing infectious disease treatment, AI-driven approaches to patient care, and cancer therapeutics.