Kathryn T. Hall, PhD, MPH, will be launching our Integrative Medicine Research Seminar Series on Thursday, September 10th.
Dr. Hall works in partnership with Professor Ted Kaptchuk and other members of the Program in Placebo Studies at Harvard Medical School.
Among her recent accomplishments is a landmark paper published in PLOS ONE identifying COMT as one of the first genetic markers of placebo response. Her work has led to the coining of the term, “placebome,” which was added to JargonWatch by WIRED magazine in 2015.
PBS News, April 2015:
“Everything from your physician’s mood to their office décor to whether or not they wear a stethoscope can have a profound influence on how some patients respond to treatment,” says co-author Kathryn Hall, a senior fellow at the Program in Placebo Studies at Harvard Medical School’s Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston. Though a placebo won’t stop cancer or a virus, being duped benefits a wide spectrum of disorders.
The million-dollar question is knowing who will exhibit the placebo effect. Over the last four years, Hall and other scientists have turned to genetic screening for clarity. They have found genetic traits – dubbed “the placebome” – that make certain people more prone to the placebo effect, according to the report.
Read the full article here.