Harvard Thinking

It’s a new era in the fight against cancer. The disease still kills nearly 10 million people worldwide every year, but advances in genomic sequencing and artificial intelligence have ushered in a new era of research. Treatments can now be personalized to patients and someday we might even have vaccines that can prevent the disease altogether. In this episode, host Samantha Laine Perfas, cancer researcher Levi Garraway, radiologist Connie Lehman, and cell therapy expert Cathy Wu talk about how close we are to turning a corner on cancer.

Things aren’t what they used to be: they’re actually better. Yet even though many measures show how much progress we’ve made, many people feel like things are worse than ever. How do we change this perspective? In this episode, host Samantha Laine Perfas speaks with positive psychologist Tal Ben-Shahar, global governance expert Jane Nelson, and evidence-based optimist Steven Pinker about choosing optimism.

Our planet is filled with plastic. On average, we produce 430 million tons every year, most of which is used only for a short period of time and then discarded. But plastic isn’t just in the environment: it’s now in our bodies. Microplastics have been found in our bloodstreams, lungs, and other organs, and we’re only recently beginning to understand how this affects our health. In this episode, host Samantha Laine Perfas, cell biologist Don Ingber, environmental health scientist Mary Johnson, and nanomaterial researcher Philip Demokritou discuss our destructive relationship with plastic.

College is expensive. Even with ramped-up financial aid efforts from universities, people are still trying to decide if tuition will lead to a smart return on their investment. Is a liberal arts education worth the price tag? In this episode, host Samantha Laine Perfas talks with economist David Deming, educator Nancy Hill, and philosophy Professor Susanna Siegel about how to make a liberal arts education attractive again.