Pathogens are tiny invaders of the body that can make people sick—something that Howard Heller, MD, MPH, has spent his entire career studying. Then, in 2024, Heller discovered at age 64 there was another kind of invader, growing slowly and uncontrollably in his own body: cancer. “I’ve helped patients as an infectious disease specialist for … Read more
Linda Lane was still fatigued months after having COVID-19 in January of 2021. “I told my doctor that I had not been this tired since I had a newborn in the house,” says Lane, now 57 and living on Cape Cod. “That got her attention.” Her bloodwork came back with abnormal results. By May, the … Read more
The first time Jackie Dunn tracked her husband Mike’s numbers, he was a high school basketball star and she was the team statistician. More than 40 years later, she was back at it — this time with far more on the line than a ballgame. The Dunns had temporarily relocated in the summer of 2024 … Read more
As she hopped off the bleachers onto the grass after a graduation ceremony, Elizabeth Zarrella felt an unfamiliar pain in her back. A visit to the emergency room a week later revealed the source of the pain and the reason for its severity: her vertebrae were so brittle that two of them had been compressed … Read more
One of the most exciting new cancer treatments, CAR T-cell therapy takes its complicated name, in part, from a fire-breathing monster in an ancient Greek myth. CAR is an acronym for “chimeric antigen receptor,” referring to genetically engineered molecules manufactured in a laboratory, inserted into the genetic material of immune T cells that have been removed from … Read more