Fifteenth Annual Harvard Medical School Media Fellowship
Spring 2012

Fellowship Background:

The Harvard Medical School media fellowship program is now entering its fifteenth season and has hosted 84 reporters from across print, radio, and television. Reporters work with our staff to design a program around the fellowship theme tailored to their particular interests and then spend a week meeting with roughly 20 faculty and other relevant stakeholders. Fellows have often formed lasting relationships with these subject matter experts, and the school does not play gatekeeper in those relationships.

This spring’s fellowship themes are "Beyond Personalized Medicine: Inherited disease in the age of the $1000 genome" and "Know Thyself: Autoimmunity, a biomedical identity crisis." See program descriptions and application information below.

Applications for this spring’s fellowship are due February 17, 2012.

Spring 2012 Fellowship Themes:

Beyond Personalized Medicine: Inherited disease in the age of the $1000 genome
April 2 – 6

In recent years, the field of personalized medicine has seen startling breakthroughs in areas such as targeted cancer therapy. We have also witnessed genome sequencing technologies follow Moore’s Law: the faster it gets, the cheaper it gets.

Biomedical researchers and thought leaders continue to grapple with what all this means for the future of medicine. While breakthroughs in certain cancers have been stunning, what is the future of personalized medicine for more common diseases such as diabetes or neurodegeneration? And what are the potential policy issues regarding cost and access?

In this program, fellows will meet with experts in personalized medicine and targeted therapies throughout Harvard Medical School and its hospitals, many of whom are world leaders in the field. They will interview scientists and clinicians who study the fundamental mechanisms of both disease and pharmacology and learn about the latest advances in clinical applications. They will also spend a day “embedded” in the laboratory of Harvard geneticist and genomic pioneer George Church, learning firsthand about the latest breakthroughs in sequencing technologies and their relevance to human health.

In addition to meeting with Harvard Medical School faculty, fellows also may visit laboratories and attend roundtable discussions, research seminars and grand rounds.

Know Thyself: Autoimmunity, a biomedical identity crisis
April 30 – May 4

The human immune system is an intricate theater of operation in which the body distinguishes self and non-self, or, to borrow a phrase from a noted twentieth century philosopher, “I and Thou.”

But sometimes the surveillance goes wrong, and instead of attacking viral or bacterial invaders, the body attacks itself. Such friendly fire is the root of autoimmunity.

Autoimmune diseases such as Type 1 diabetes and rheumatoid arthritis—not to mention allergies, their close cousins—are a challenge not only to clinicians but to researchers trying to better understand how the body interacts with the world around it.

For this program, fellows will meet with a range of autoimmunity experts throughout the Harvard medical community, from those who study immunity at the molecular level to those innovating clinical interventions. Fellows will also spend a day “embedded” in the laboratory of Christophe Benoist and Diane Mathis, two of Harvard’s leading experts on the biological dynamics of autoimmunity, as well as learning more about how the “microbiome,” that ecosystem of bacterial microorganisms living inside of us, helps regulate our body’s defenses.

In addition to meeting with Harvard Medical School faculty, fellows also may visit laboratories and attend roundtable discussions, research seminars and grand rounds.

Easy Application

Applying to the program is easy. Simply send an email to david_cameron@hms.harvard.edu and in it include information about you and your beat. Please also indicate that your editor/producer will allow you a week away and that there is general interest in covering the topic in some fashion down the road (this is generic interest, not necessarily interest in covering Harvard).

Harvard Medical School will pay for lodging and the program includes a per diem for meals.

LENGTH OF FELLOWSHIP: Five workdays.

NUMBER OF FELLOWS: Three per theme

APPLICATION DUE DATE: Friday, February 17, 2012

CONTACT:
David Cameron
Director of Media Relations
Harvard Medical School
107 Avenue Louis Pasteur, Suite 111
Boston, MA 02115
617-432-0441 or david_cameron@hms.harvard.edu