Kathryn Hall

Dr. Kathryn Hall is Director of Basic and Translational Research at Osher Center for Integrative Medicine and Assistant Professor of Medicine in the Division of Preventive Medicine, at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) and Harvard Medical School. After receiving her PhD in Microbiology and Molecular Genetics from Harvard University she spent 10 years in the biotech industry tackling problems in drug discovery and development, first at Wyeth (now Pfizer) and then at Millennium Pharmaceuticals (now Takeda), where she became an Associate Director of Drug Development. Dr. Hall returned to Harvardm Medical School in 2010, joining the Fellowship in Integrative Medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in 2012, and receiving a Master’s in Public Health from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in 2014. Dr. Hall was the 2015 Harvard Catalyst Program for Faculty Development and Diversity Inclusion (PPFDD) faculty fellow. In 2019 Dr. Hall was the recipient of the BWH Minority Faculty Career Development Award and a Radcliffe Exploratory Program grant which supported the recent groundbreaking Placebome in Clinical Trials and Medicine Conference.

Dr. Hall’s recent research has focused on catechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT), an enzyme that metabolizes catecholamines and estrogen and has pleiotropic effects in a broad set of diseases and treatments, including cardiovascular disease and cancer. Among her accomplishments are landmark papers identifying one of the first genetic markers of placebo response and introducing the new field of placebo genomics in Trends in Molecular Medicine. Her research has been the focus of numerous articles including features on BBC and in Science, The Atlantic, New York Times, The Economist and Discover magazines. Dr. Hall also has a Masters in Documentary Film from Emerson College.