HSPH’s Joseph Brain ends 40-year stretch teaching Harvard undergrad public health course
Joseph Brain, Cecil K. and Philip Drinker Professor of Environmental Physiology at Harvard School of Public Health, launched the Harvard undergraduate course “The Human Organism” in 1971 and has taught it for all but one year since. He…
Predicting survival for brain cancer patients
Is it possible to predict survival for patients with oligodendroglioma from aberrations in their DNA? According to a 2006 study by Rebecca Betensky and colleagues, the answer is yes. An analysis of DNA in 93 patients was completed…
Projecting MS progression
To help physicians predict the likelihood that a patient’s multiple sclerosis will advance significantly in the near term, Rebecca Betensky and her collaborators have developed a formula, which they continue to refine. Using data from a small…
The oddsmaker
[ Spring 2008 ] A math whiz takes on brain cancer, MS, and Alzheimer’s disease. Rebecca Betensky’s dad worked as a statistician for a global oil company on “credit rating stuff,” she says, so for a long time, she “stayed…
