Harvard University

Transformative Treatments

Using innovative approaches, advanced research, and nanotechnology, Harvard scientists are finding new ways to treat Alzheimer’s, cancer, diabetes, and more.

New approaches to
long-standing illnesses

Alzheimer’s

Bruce Yankner and his team published research showing that lithium is a natural, biologically important element in the brain that has the potential to prevent or even reverse Alzheimer’s disease.

Learn more about the breakthrough

ALS

After three decades researching amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, Merit Cudkowicz says a new drug shows “the whole field that this illness can be stopped.”

Learn more about the advance

Diabetes

More than three decades ago, Joel Habener set up an experiment at Massachusetts General Hospital that led to the discovery of GLP-1, a hormone now used to treat diabetes and obesity.

Learn more about the discovery

Cancer

Harvard scientists are finding powerful new ways to diagnose and treat cancer, including creating AI models capable of diagnosing multiple forms of cancers, using CAR-T-cell therapy to trigger rapid improvement in some of the sickest patients, blocking a specific protein to supercharge cancer immunotherapies, and inhibiting a major driver of cancer with a novel drug.

Learn about more cancer breakthroughs

From our labs to your life

Learn more about how groundbreaking medicine becomes accessible to the public

Doug Melton on his research journey

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New developments for type 1 diabetes

Inspired by his son’s diagnosis with type 1 diabetes, Harvard Professor Doug Melton shifted his lab’s focus to finding a cure through pioneering work on stem cells.

Learn more about his work on diabetes

A new approach for congenital deafness

Harvard alum Manny Simons and his company Akouos led a groundbreaking trial for congenital deafness that enabled an 11-year-old boy to hear for the first time.

A new class of antibiotics

Kinvard Bio, a biotechnology company launched out of Harvard’s Myers Lab, is creating a new class of antibiotics in the hopes of treating drug-resistant infections and diseases.

A new platform for personalized immunotherapy

Researchers at Harvard’s Wyss Institute are harnessing DNA nanotechnology to deliver drugs for cancer, autoimmune diseases, and infectious diseases with nanoscale precision.

Saving the brain through science

Using AI to find treatments for Rett Syndrome

AI-enabled drug discovery identified a potentially game-changing treatment that’s been advanced from the lab bench to an FDA Orphan Drug Designation in record time.

Learn more about the discovery

Predicting suicide attempts a week in advance

Psychologist Matthew Nock’s research using real-time surveys forecasted 87% of suicide-related crises before they occurred—a marked leap beyond existing prediction models.

Learn about the improved predictions

Marking a milestone toward prion disease treatment

Recent research provides hope that prion disease—a handful of rare disorders caused by misfolded proteins in the brain—may soon have a treatment or even a cure.

Learn how gene editing may be the solution

Award-winning research

Autism research

Paola Arlotta was awarded an ARIA grant for her work with artificial intelligence and brain-mimicking “organoids” to better understand autism.

Learn more about Paola's work

Genetic disorders

David Liu has been named a laureate of the 2025 Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences for the development of gene-editing platforms, which can correct disease-causing genetic variations.

Learn more about David's work

Multiple sclerosis

Alberto Ascherio won the 2025 Breakthrough award for his 20-year study which found a strong link between Epstein-Barr infection and an increased risk of developing multiple sclerosis later in life.

Learn more about Alberto's work

Sickle cell disease

Stuart Orkin won the 2026 Breakthrough Prize for this research locating a therapeutic target for sickle cell disease.

Learn more about Stuart's work

A history of groundbreaking medicine

Explore a timeline of Harvard’s medical innovations

A black and white image of an organ transplant operation

The first organ transplant

On December 23, 1954, Harvard Medical School Professor Joseph Murray and his team performed a kidney transplant on a man who had been given just two years to live. The surgery ushered in the era of organ transplantation, giving hope to thousands of patients each year.

The first organ transplant

Defibrillator

Harvard’s Paul Zoll helped to develop the defibrillator, which provided a new approach for resuscitating patients, paved the way for new possibilities in cardiac surgery, and saved countless lives.

Defibrillator

Functional MRI

Researchers at Harvard’s Martinos Center helped pioneer this revolutionary way of measuring brain activity in real-time.

Black and white photo of someone going into an MRI machine

Functional MRI

Smallpox vaccine

Benjamin Waterhouse, a founding faculty member of Harvard Medical School, introduced the smallpox vaccine in the United States and helped gain acceptance for the new procedure.

Smallpox vaccine

Iron lung

A device that saved thousands of lives during polio outbreaks in the mid-20th century, the iron lung was developed by Harvard Medical School faculty members Philip Drinker and Louis Agassiz Shaw.

Iron lung