Imagine your doctor could precisely predict your personal risk of disease, diagnose the cause of illness with pinpoint accuracy when it did occur, and develop an effective treatment plan with low side effects the first time, rather than through trial and error. That's the promise of personalized medicine. And it would be a revolution in healthcare. At the heart of this vision is the notion that our genetic differences have a big impact on how each of us responds to disease and treatment. To realize a future of personalized medicine then, we need to understand and investigate just how genetic variations, including mutations, contribute to illness and respond to doctors' attempts to address it. But how can scientists do that efficiently with a human genome that spans about three billion base pairs of DNA across tens of thousands of genes? That's where the work of PhD student Dawn Chen comes in. A student in Harvard’s Department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology and the Systems, Synthetic, and Quantitative Biology Program, Chen was named a recipient of the 2025 Harold M. Weintraub Graduate Student Award for Outstanding Achievement and Exceptional Research in the Biological Sciences, presented by Seattle's Fred Hutch Cancer Center. With her colleagues in the lab of Harvard professor Fei Chen, Dawn Chen is developing an innovative gene-editing tool known as helicase-assisted continuous editing, or HACE. A breakthrough in genetic engineering, supported in part by funds from the National Institutes of Health, HACE makes edits to specific genes, allowing researchers to investigate how genetic variations contribute to disease. The technique could lead to the identification of specific mutations that influence the effectiveness of drugs and therapies for illnesses like cancer.
--------
20:06
A Cheaper Way to Make Drugs?
The cost of prescription drugs is high—particularly in the US where consumers pay nearly three times more than those in 33 other nations in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. One factor in prices is fluorination, which plays a crucial role in the production of many widely-used pharmaceuticals. Driven by the high cost of reagents needed for the trifluoromethyl (CF₃) group, the process is expensive—and hard on the natural environment. If there was a way to make fluorination more accessible, sustainable, and affordable—it could reshape how we approach drug synthesis—and much else in chemistry.Chemist and Harvard Griffin GSAS PhD candidate Brandon Campbell has developed an innovative method of fluorination that could do just that. Using silver and visible light, Campbell’s pioneering approach promises a cost-effective and eco-friendly alternative to traditional synthetic methods.
--------
16:55
How Elite Universities Grapple with the Legacy of Slavery—and Why It Matters
The history of slavery in the United States, including at the country's colleges and universities, is deeply disturbing and painful. But Professor Sara Bleich, PhD ’07, says it’s critical that our society continue to do so—and that universities have a responsibility to lead the way. Harvard’s inaugural vice provost for special projects and a former member of the Obama and Biden administrations, Bleich leads the effort to implement the seven recommendations of the 2022 report on Harvard & the Legacy of Slavery. Her goal is to help the University—and, by extension, the country — move forward into a future where Black Americans can succeed and thrive.
--------
32:19
Is AI Coming for Your Job?
Technological disruption of human occupations is nothing new. In recent decades, blue-collar occupations have borne the brunt of the upheavals—think of all the factory workers now working at Wal-Mart thanks to the integration of robots on assembly lines. But all that may be changing now. Given artificial intelligence’s ability to do thought work—from crafting feature stories in seconds to writing and editing computer code—disruptive innovation is now coming to a college-educated profession near you. Feeling concerned? Take heart. Harvard's Isabelle and Scott Black Professor of Political Economy David Deming says AI is here to make us more productive, not take our jobs—at least not yet. The co-author of the recent paper, "Technological Disruption in the US Labor Market," Deming says that thanks to technology, every small businessperson or professional can now have an indefatigable digital assistant, one with a flawless memory, encyclopedic knowledge, and lightning-fast response time—and one who will never ask for a raise or even a wage.Deming, who received his PhD from the Harvard Kenneth C. Griffin Graduate School of Arts and Sciences in 2010, spoke recently about artificial intelligence and its impact on the labor market during an event for the School’s alumni at the Harvard Club of San Francisco. He was interviewed by Harvard Griffin GSAS Dean Emma Dench, whose questions were sometimes submitted by audience members.
--------
50:58
Bob Dylan: From "A Complete Unknown" to "A Prophet Without God"
With filmgoers buzzing about the Bob Dylan biopic, A Complete Unknown, University of Pennsylvania Professor Jeffrey Edward Green, PhD ’07, says that the legendary singer and songwriter is more than a musician; he’s the conflicted prophet of a fallen world. In his new book, Bob Dylan, Prophet Without God, Green writes that Dylan models, "how to practice self-reliance in a world of permanent injustice and suffering, without appeal to divinity and providence, and without the self-satisfaction of believing he is also adequately fulfilling his social responsibility, or abiding by an individualism that everyone is equally free to practice if they wish." In that sense, Green contends, Dylan “has bestowed a message uniquely suited to a time such as ours."
--------
28:48
Flere Videnskab podcasts
Trendige Videnskab podcasts
Om Colloquy
Conversations with visionary scholars and thinkers from the Harvard PhD community
Denmark