For more than two centuries, Harvard Medical School has brought together a community that is deeply committed to advancing science, educating future leaders, and improving health around the world.
With a community that's remarkable in both size and breadth — more than twice that of any other medical school in the United States — we draw on expertise across disciplines, institutions, and generations. That scale allows us to tackle complex challenges and mentor tomorrow's doctors and scientists, guided by a shared sense of purpose and a genuine passion to make a difference.
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High school students from Boston Latin Academy tackled a hands-on simulated medical emergency in the HMS MEDscience program's simulation lab this week. The program offers high school students realistic, hands-on experiences in the medical field, letting students work alongside medical professionals to learn clinical skills and explore healthcare careers.
Massachusetts Health & Human Services Secretary Dr. Kiame Mahaniah observed the simulation. A practicing physician in the field of addiction and primary care, Secretary Mahaniah spoke with students and offered advice for those considering careers in healthcare and medicine.
Photos: @niles_singer /Harvard University
When Nikki Pérez graduates with her MD and begins her residency in neurosurgery at the Barrow Neurological Institute later this year, she will be continuing on a journey that started in early childhood.
When she was 4 years old, Pérez was diagnosed with an arachnoid cyst — a fluid-filled sac beneath the arachnoid membrane that surrounds the brain and spinal cord. The cyst didn’t require surgery, but Pérez found herself under the care of a neurosurgeon, sparking her interest in neurosurgery.
When she arrived at HMS, she also discovered a passion for advancing the cause of global neurosurgery by addressing systemic inequalities in health care access.
Pérez became involved with Mission: BRAIN, a nonprofit working to increase global access to neurosurgical care. As she worked on education and mentorship initiatives, though, she wondered if there was more that she could do to help people around the world get the care they need.
In her third year at HMS, she shared this curiosity with global neurosurgery leader Kee Park, lecturer on global health and social medicine, part-time, at HMS. Park invited her to lead a new initiative, the Boston Declaration, a five-year effort to mobilize coordinated action to address persistent disparities in access to neurosurgical care worldwide.
Pérez credits the unique, collaborative learning environment at HMS for making the Boston Declaration and her involvement in it possible.
“The power of this institution is that you can dream up any idea and you tell someone about it and all of a sudden all these world-class experts will be coming to you with ideas that build on yours and allow you to make it a reality,” Pérez said.
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Attempts to design a therapeutic vaccine for cervical cancer have not yet been successful. That’s why graduating Harvard Griffin GSAS PhD student Alton Gayton and his team decided to move "upstream"— to target the human papillomavirus (HPV) while it is still in the early infection stage, before it develops into cancer.
Alton, who studies virology in the Gaiha Lab at Harvard Medical School, focuses on designing a vaccine that trains the immune system’s T cells to recognize and eliminate early-stage infected cells, rather than targeting the cancer itself.
To accomplish this, they leveraged two major innovations. First, an AI-based tool called MUNIS. It predicts exactly what fragments (or epitopes) the T cells will recognize. Second, a newer technology called circular RNA, which is the same piece of RNA but circularized.
When testing this approach in mouse models, the results were remarkable. In a cervical cancer model, the circular RNA vaccines demonstrated a massive, robust ability to completely eradicate tumors, and the vaccine was highly effective at preventing tumor growth in the first place.
“Being able to work on something that could potentially prevent cancer for millions of women is exactly why I wanted to become a scientist. And doing it here at Harvard? Like I told my grandmother, I still can’t believe it.”
📷: Claudia Romano/Harvard Griffin GSAS
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Three HMS grads, now residents at Harvard Medical School-affiliated hospitals, had a full circle moment while caring for a patient. 🩺
Mary Decker, Leen Al Kassab, and Grace Baldwin started at HMS together in 2018 and are now residents in anesthesia, OB-GYN, and ophthalmology, respectively.
Recently, Mary and Leen consulted Grace for a patient on the obstetrics floor at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.
“It was meaningful to reconnect and work together to care for the patient,” Grace said.
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MD-PhD graduate Anusha Nathan first applied to the Harvard-MIT Program in Health Sciences and Technology (HST) MD track to satisfy both her medical interests and her need to understand how things work.
Nathan started researching HIV vaccines as part of her HST thesis work in February 2020. Less than two months later, her entire path changed.
The day scientists released the genetic sequence of SARS-CoV-2 — the virus behind the mounting death toll of the COVID-19 pandemic — Nathan’s research advisor, Gaurav Gaiha, asked whether she wanted to work on developing a vaccine for it.
“It was the most whirlwind experience of my entire life to be able to do science at the pace that we did it in an atmosphere full of individuals who just wanted to make a difference,” she said.
The excitement of discovery ignited her passion for research and compelled her to pursue a PhD at Harvard Kenneth C. Griffin Graduate School of Arts and Sciences in addition to the MD.
Nathan’s research has informed her clinical work. Nathan hopes to combine her knowledge of liver disease and immunology to create vaccines and treatments that would protect people from contracting viral hepatitis and prevent those with the disease from progressing to cirrhosis or cancer.
She’ll pursue this work after graduation in Mass General’s Stanbury Physician-Scientist Pathway, an internal medicine residency for doctors interested in conducting rigorous bench research alongside a clinical practice.
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For graduating medical student Yoseph Boku, an HMS lecture on sickle cell disease led to a mentorship that has shaped his career path.
He met Sharl Azar, HMS instructor and medical director of the Comprehensive Sickle Cell Disease Treatment Center at Massachusetts General Hospital, during a lecture and came to him with research ideas on patient-focused problems.
“What was especially unique about Yoseph was that he was deeply and genuinely and compassionately dedicated to the questions he was asking me about this patient population,” Azar said. “And that was obvious from the very first conversations that we were having with each other.”
Sickle cell disease is the most common life-threatening blood disorder in the world. In the United States, it’s estimated to affect approximately 100,000 people, though the true number is likely higher due to underdiagnosis and limited awareness of the condition.
Together, they launched a research project to address challenges faced by patients with sickle cell who are incarcerated.
Their mentorship story shows what’s possible at HMS and its affiliated hospitals: a career that blends clinical care, research, health equity, and connection with the community.
“One thing that I've learned from Dr. Azar that I just couldn't have learned in a 90-minute lecture slide is actually going to the bedside with Dr. Azar and seeing how authentically he connects with his patients,” Boku said.
After graduation, Boku will begin his internal medicine residency at MGH.
Pacinian corpuscles are peripheral touch sensors that detect high-frequency vibration.
This image, taken by PhD student Zoe Sarafis, shows Pacinian corpuscles in the mouse hindlimb, each innervated by an axon (magenta), with supportive cells forming an inner (green) and outer corpuscle (red). The outer corpuscles touch, likely to assist signal transduction to the central nervous system.
Sarafis conducts research in the lab of neurobiology professor David Ginty.
The Ginty Lab uses a combination of molecular genetics, anatomy, behavior, and electrophysiology to gain a better appreciation of the development, organization, and function of low-threshold mechanoreceptors and the complex neural circuitry that underlies our sense of touch.
Learning how to control touch pathways could inform the design of treatments for pain and touch dysfunction.
This image was submitted to the Harvard Brain Science Initiative’s 2025 Beauty of the Brain image contest.
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A first-year master’s student in therapeutic sciences, Valerie Cavanaugh chose the program to open new opportunities.
The two-year master's program provides training in early drug discovery and prepares students to pursue research careers in pharmaceutical companies, biotech firms, academic labs, and research institutes.
In the King Lab, Cavanaugh studies how ubiquitin-conjugating enzymes are regulated, working with a mentor who gives her both guidance and the freedom to design her own experiments.
With 15 students in the program, Cavanaugh says the tight-knit group is one of her favorite parts.
“We’ve become really close as a group,” she said. “I see them in class every day but then we also have our own individual lab experiences, and we can bring that information back and learn from each other.”
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