Director, Harvard Medical School Osher Research Center

Bernard Osher Associate Professor of Medicine

Program Director, Integrative Medicine

Dr. Eisenberg is a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Medical School. He completed his fellowship training in general internal medicine and primary care and is Board Certified in Internal Medicine. In 1979, under the auspices of the National Academy of Sciences Dr. Eisenberg served as the first US medical exchange student to the People’s Republic of China. In 1993, he was the medical advisor to the PBS Series, “Healing and the Mind” with Bill Moyers. More recently, Dr. Eisenberg served as an advisor to the National Institutes of Health, the Food and Drug Administration and the Federation of State Medical Boards with regard to complementary, alternative and integrative medicine research, education and policy. From 2003-2005 Dr. Eisenberg served on a National Academy of Sciences Committee responsible for the Institute of Medicine Report entitled, “The Use of Complementary and Alternative Medicine by the American Public.” Dr. Eisenberg has authored numerous scientific articles involving complementary and integrative medical therapies and currently oversees Harvard Medical School’s research, educational and clinical programs in this area.

Executive Director

Sally M. Andrews, M.B.A., B.A., is the executive director of the Harvard Medical School Osher Research Center and Division for Research and Education in Complementary and Integrative Medical Therapies. Ms. Andrews has been with the Research Center since January 1, 2002. Prior to joining the Research Center, Ms. Andrews was the chief administrative officer for the Department of Medicine at Children’s Hospital, serving in that capacity for 10 years. She worked at Children’s Hospital for over 22 years. Ms. Andrews is a member of the Boards of Trustees of Lasell Village and Lasell College in Newton, MA and served as president of the Association of Administrators in Academic Pediatrics from 1996 to 1998. Ms. Andrews received her B.A. in Management from Simmons College in 1978 and her M.B.A. from Boston University in 1986.

Director of Clinical Research

Professor of Medicine

Dr. Buring received her BA in mathematics from Pomona College in Claremont, California in 1971; a masters degree in biostatistics from the University of Washington in Seattle in 1975; and a doctorate in epidemiology from the Harvard School of Public Health in 1983. She is Professor of Medicine, and Ambulatory Care and Prevention, at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women's Hospital, as well as Professor of Epidemiology at Harvard School of Public Health. Dr. Buring's research focuses on the epidemiology of chronic disease, primarily cardiovascular disease and cancer, and especially among women. She is involved in a number of large-scale clinical trials of the prevention of these diseases, especially using vitamin supplements. She is Principal Investigator of the Women's Health Study, a large-scale randomized clinical trial conducted among 40,000 female health professionals of the benefits and risks of low-dose aspirin and vitamin E in the primary prevention of cardiovascular disease and cancer, as well as the extended observational follow-up of the participants. Dr. Buring is actively involved in the teaching and training of students and fellows in epidemiology, both nationally and internationally, and is director of an NIH T32 training grant in the epidemiology of aging. Dr. Buring is co-author of a widely used introductory textbook, Epidemiology in Medicine.

Medical Director, Osher Clinical Center

Assistant Clinical Professor of Medicine

Donald B. Levy, M.D. is the Medical Director of the Osher Clinical Center. He is a board certified internist and an Assistant Clinical Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. He graduated New York Medical College in 1981 and completed his residency at Mt. Auburn Hospital in Cambridge, MA. Dr. Levy taught Harvard medical students, interns, residents and fellows in a variety of roles for over 25 years and maintained a practice in primary care internal medicine until 2007. He worked at the Marino Center for Progressive Health in Cambridge, MA. for over 10 years where he served as Medical Director for one year, and then staff physician and Director of Integrative Medical Education. He helped the center to expand its multidisciplinary team of practitioners and to ally itself with local academic medical centers, hospitals and research organizations. His professional interests include the use of nutrition and dietary herbs and supplements in medicine, the management of cardiac risks to prevent heart disease and the integration of scientific advances in modern medicine with the age-old principles and therapies that enhance the ability to heal and maintain good health.

Director, Fellowship Training

Professor of Medicine

Chief, Division of General Internal Medicine

Dr. Phillips is Chief, Division of General Medicine and Primary Care at BIDMC. He is Director of Fellowship Training at the Osher Research Center and directs the T32 NCCAM-funded research fellowship program on complementary and integrative medicine. He also directs the Harvard Faculty Development and Fellowship Program in General Medicine. He is the recipient of a K24 Mid-Career Investigator Award from NCCAM and, in 1999, received the Barger Award for Excellence in Mentorship at Harvard Medical School. He has mentored fellows on clinical trials, survey research, secondary data analyses, qualitative research, cost-effectiveness analyses, and systematic reviews. Topics have included the efficacy of static magnets, mind-body therapies such as Tai Chi, the prevalence of CAM use in ethnic minorities, and heavy metals in ayurvedic medicines. He is Principal Investigator of an NCI-funded R21 on the use of massage for symptom relief among hospitalized patients with metastatic cancer. His research interests include patient safety and quality of care as well as integrative medicine.

Director, Tai Chi and Mind-Body Research Programs

Assistant Professor of Medicine

Dr. Wayne is an Assistant Professor in Medicine and Director of Tai Chi and Mind-Body Research Programs in Harvard Medical School's Division for Research and Education in Complementary and Integrative Medical Therapies. He founded and served as director of the Oriental medicine research program at the New England school of Acupuncture (NESA) from 2000 to 2006. Peter has served as principal or co-investigator in a number of NIH-funded clinical trials evaluating Asian healing therapies. His current research evaluates how Tai Chi and related min-body practices clinically impact a variety of health conditions (osteoporosis, balance impairment, heart failure), and understanding the physiological, mechanical, and psychological mechanisms underlying mind-body practices' therapeutic effects. Peter also has more than 30 years of training experience in Tai Chi and Qigong, and is a nationally recognized teacher of these practices.

Director, Biostatistics

Associate Professor of Medicine

Dr. Davis received his BA in mathematics and statistics and MA in statistics from the University of Rochester and his doctorate in biostatistics from the Harvard School of Public Health. He also serves as Principal Biostatistican in the Division of General Medicine and Primary Care at BIDMC and holds an appointment as Associate Professor in the Department of Biostatistics, Harvard School of Public Health. Before coming to BIDMC and the Osher Research Center, Dr. Davis was at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute where he collaborated on national cooperative group clinical trials on cancer and AIDS. His current collaborative research activities include clinical trials, surveys, health services research and clinical epidemiology. He is actively involved in mentoring fellows and is the co-director of the T-32 NCCAM-funded research fellowship program on complementary and integrative medicine. He teaches a course on survival methods for clinical research at the Harvard School of Public Health.

Director, Complementary Specialties

Associate Professor of Medicine

Ted J. Kaptchuk is one of the few individuals who manages to comfortably straddle both the alternative and conventional medical worlds. He is a graduate of the Macao Institute of Chinese Medicine, in Macao, China and is an acknowledged scholar of East Asian medicine. His Web That Has No Weaver: Understanding Chinese Medicine is a classic in the field. He is also considered an expert in many other forms of alternative medicine. For the last ten years, his research interests have shifted to placebo studies and he has led numerous NIH-funded clinical, basic science, social science, historical, methodological and ethical investigations of placebo effects. He recently completed a four-year service as an expert panelist of the FDA and is currently serving his second four-year term on the National Advisory Council of the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM), NIH. He has authored over 100 articles in such journals as Lancet, British Medical Journal, Journal of Neuroscience, Annals of Internal Medicine, NeuroImage, Pain, New England Journal of Medicine, Journal of the American Medical Association, Bulletin for the History of Medicine, Journal of Clinical Epidemiology and International Journal of Epidemiology. Ted J. Kaptchuk is one of the few individuals who manages to comfortably straddle both the alternative and conventional medical worlds. His original education took place at a school in Macao, China and he is an acknowledged scholar in East Asian medicine. He is also considered an expert in many other forms of alternative medicine. For the last ten years, his research interests have shifted to placebo studies and he has led numerous NIH-funded clinical, basic science, social science, historical, methodological and ethical investigations of placebo effects. He recently completed a four year service as an expert panelist of the FDA and is currently serving his second four year term on the National Advisory Council of the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM), NIH. He has authored over 100 articles in such journals as Lancet, British Medical Journal, Annals of Internal Medicine, New England Journal of Medicine, Journal of the American Medical Association, Bulletin for the History of Medicine and Journal of Clinical Epidemiology.

Co-Director, Marcus Natural Product Program

Hsien Wu and Daisy Yen Professor

Jon Clardy joined the Harvard Medical School at the beginning of 2003 as a Professor in the Department of Biological Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology. His research involves many aspects of biologically active small molecules, especially those known as natural products. He is closely affiliated with the Initiative in Chemical Genetics, an effort to broaden the range of small molecule therapeutic agents, and more generally moderators of all biological processes, through the screening of libraries of structurally diverse compounds in both ad hoc and systematic screens. In the area of malaria, Jon's laboratory defined the structure of a crucial enzymatic target, P. falciparum's dihydroorotate dehydrogenase (DHODH), for antimalarial agents. His current activities include finding new molecular templates for DHODH inhibitors and understanding the structural basis of its mechanism, work funded by the Burroughs-Wellcome Fund. He is also engaged in forward chemical genetic screens to find new targets for antimalarial and antitrypanosomal therapy. Jon graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Yale University and received his Ph.D. from Harvard University, both in chemistry. He joined the chemistry faculty of Iowa State University and a few years later moved to Cornell University where he remained for over twenty years. He has received many awards for his research including fellowships from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation, a John Simon Guggenheim Foundation. He has also received the Ernest Guenther Award and an Arthur C. Cope Scholar Award from the American Chemical Society, and the Research Achievement Award from the American Society of Pharmacognosy. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and won Cornell's highest award for teaching in the College of Arts and Sciences.

Scientific Director, Marcus Natural Product Program

Lecturer on Biological Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology

Dr. Littlefield joined Harvard Medical School and the Marcus effort on May 1, 2009. Prior to joining HMS, Bruce worked in the pharmaceutical industry for 19 years, leading cancer drug discovery efforts at Eisai Research Institute, the US-based drug discovery laboratories of the global Japanese drug company, Eisai Co., Ltd. At Eisai, Bruce personally initiated, directed, and/or had oversight responsibilities for more than 4 dozen oncology drug discovery programs, most of which were based on pharmaceutical optimization of synthetic analogs of natural products from plant, marine, or microorganism sources. At the time of Bruce's departure, three such programs had advanced to human clinical trials for cancer, including eribulin/E7389, E7974, and E6201. Bruce received his B.S. in Biology, cum laude, from Tufts University, and Ph.D. in Biochemistry from the University of Vermont College of Medicine. After a post-doctoral fellowship in Cell Biology at the Mayo Clinic, Bruce joined the faculty at Yale University School of Medicine as an Assistant Professor, a position he held for 6 years before joining Eisai. Throughout both his training and professional career, Bruce's research has focused on various aspects of cancer cell biology, with his years in industry imparting to him a passion for the discovery and development of novel, high impact, natural product-based cancer therapeutics. Working with the entire Marcus Natural Product Research Program team at HMS, Bruce is responsible for scientific and therapeutic strategies of the Program, establishing suitable internal and external collaborative arrangements, internal leadership on decision-making regarding commercial viability of active lead compounds, and scientific oversight of the screening process and associated data evaluation.

Instructor in Medicine

Dr. Ahn graduated from NYU medical school and completed his residency at University of Michigan Medical Center. He worked as a hospitalist at Massachusetts General Hospital for two years before starting a research fellowship with the Division. His interests include disparities in health care, Traditional Chinese Medicine, and applications of systems biology to the acupuncture model. He obtained a Master’s degree in Public Health at the Harvard School of Public Health. He is certified in acupuncture and continues his apprenticeship with an acupuncturist once a week. He is currently directing investigations as part of an NIH K career award focusing on the electro-magnetic mechanisms of acupuncture neuropathy. He also serves as a Hospitalist at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.

Instructor in Medicine

Dr. Birdee received his B.A. in Religion and B.S. in Biochemistry from the University of Rochester. He continued at the University of Rochester to obtain his M.D. He completed an Internal Medicine and Pediatrics Residency at the University of Miami/Jackson Memorial Hospital. He received a Masters of Public Health from Harvard School of Public Health. He completed the Integrative Medicine Research and Faculty Development Fellowship at the Osher Research Center Harvard Medical School in 2009. He is in a 500 hour teaching training program with the Krishnamacarya Healing and Yoga Foundation in Chennai, India and the Healing Yoga Foundation in San Francisco, CA. Dr. Birdee's research focuses on the translation and evaluation of traditional and modern yoga techniques for clinical therapy among patients with chronic diseases. He practices Internal Medicine and Pediatrics at the Massachusetts General Hospital Revere Healthcare Center.

Director, Marcus Natural Product Laboratory

Research Associate

Dr. Cao received his BS in Pharmaceutical Sciences from Hubei College of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) in 1983. He has taught and conducted research at Hubei College of TCM (Wuhan, China), China Pharmaceutical University (Nanjing, China), and Gifu Pharmaceutical University (Gifu, Japan; sent by the China Ministry of Health as a recipient of Sasagawa Fellowship) before moving to the Republic of Singapore for his Doctorate at the Department of Chemistry, the National University of Singapore. After his graduate study in 1998 Dr. Cao joined MerLion Pharmaceuticals Pte Ltd, a leading natural product based research and development company headquartered in Singapore. In April 2003, Dr. Cao joined Prof. David Kingston's Laboratory at Virginia Tech Department of Chemistry, which has a strong tradition of natural products research. Dr. Cao was a senior Research Fellow in the Kingston Laboratory until accepting his post at Harvard Medical School in December 2008. Dr. Cao's research interests include drug discovery from natural sources, natural product research, and the Chinese Materia Medica. In addition to patent applications, he has authored over 50 publications in peer-reviewed English journals.

Instructor in Medicine

Co-Director of Research

Lisa Conboy is a social epidemiologist and a sociologist with an interest in the associations between social factors and health. She is published in the areas of Women's Health, Mind-Body Medicine, and qualitative research methodology. She is co-investigator on three NIH funded grants at the Osher Research center. She is also the research director and part-time faculty at the New England School of Acupuncture where she teaches research methodology. She is also a founding member the Kripalu research collaborative which examines the mental, physical, and spiritual benefits of yoga, meditation, Ayurveda and other holistic and mind-body therapies.

Lecturer on Medicine

Eric Jacobson is a medical anthropologist and clinical trialist who investigates classical Asian medicines, placebo phenomena, and alternative manual therapies. His dissertation on the approach of affective and anxiety disorders in contemporary classical Tibetan medicine was based on field work in Tibetan refugee communities in northern India and on his original translations of Tibetan medical texts. Since 2001 as a member of the Placebo Research Group at Osher Research Center he has worked on NIH-funded clinical research on the placebo response and the experience of healing. Other projects have included a study of diagnostic reasoning in Traditional Chinese Medicine and a multi-disciplinary study of healing in Irritable Bowel Syndrome. An additional dimension of Dr. Jacobson's research stems from his background of over thirty years as a practitioner of the Rolf method of Structural Integration, an alternative system of manual therapy. In this connection he was a principal organizer and program chairman for the First International Congress on Fascia Research, 2007 - the first scientific conference devoted to this topic. In October 2008 he received a mid-career training grant from the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) to investigate "Structural Integration for Chronic Low Back Pain.

Instructor in Medicine

Catherine Kerr received her BA from Amherst College and her PhD from the Johns Hopkins University. She currently holds a NIH K01 mentored research grant awarded by NCCAM in 2006. She uses neuroimaging and behavioral approaches to investigate mind-body therapies and the sense of touch. She is looking specifically at whether some mind-body therapies not typically regarded as touch-based (including mindfulness based stress reduction [MBSR] or Tai Chi) work by eliciting changes in neural processes and structures that encode touch and bodily sensations. She is working in collaboration with investigators at MIT and MGH and maintains the Kerr Lab at the Osher Research Center.

Instructor in Medicine

Acupuncture Therapist

Weidong Lu received his Bachelor of Medicine from Zhejiang College of Traditional Chinese Medicine in Hangzhou, China in 1983 and Master of Public Health from Harvard School of Public Health in 2002. He is professor of Chinese Medicine and the past chairman of Chinese Herbal Medicine Department at The New England School of Acupuncture. He has been on staff as a licensed acupuncturist at Zakim Center for Integrative Therapies at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute since 2000. Lu is the co-leader of NIH-funded acupuncture trial for chemotherapy induced neutropenia and the first recipient of The Bernard Osher Foundation/NCCAM CAM Practitioner Research Career Development Award. Currently, he is conducting an acupuncture trial on dysphagia in head and neck cancer. He has a faculty appointment at Osher Research Center, Harvard Medical School. His primary research interests are in conducting clinical trials of acupuncture for cancer related symptoms; Chinese herbal medicine in practice, TCM pattern diagnoses and related underling mechanisms.

Assistant Professor of Medicine

Dr. Post is a practicing physician in Rheumatology and Internal Medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital and Faulkner Hospital in Boston. In addition, she is an investigator at the Research Center, where she is involved in several clinical trials on care of back pain using both conventional and complementary medical therapies and consults to other investigators on IRB and clinical trial regulations.

Professor of Neurology

Director of Research, Department of Neurology

Dr. Schachter attended medical school at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. He completed an internship in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, a neurological residency at the Harvard-Longwood Neurological Training Program, and an epilepsy fellowship at Beth Israel Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts. He is currently Director of Research for the Neurology Department and Vice Chair of the Committee for Clinical Investigations at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, Massachusetts. Dr. Schachter's current work focuses on the investigation of traditional therapies to treat neurological diseases.

Dr. Schachter compiled the 5-volume Brainstorms series, which has been distributed to over 150,000 patients and families worldwide. He has edited or written eight other books on epilepsy and behavioral neurology, and is the founding editor and editor-in-chief of Epilepsy & Behavior.

Assistant Professor of Medicine

Dr. Yeh received her training in internal medicine from Boston University and her Masters of Public Health from the Harvard School of Public Health. She completed an Integrative Medicine Research and Faculty Development Fellowship in 2003. Her interests include East Asian therapies and mind-body exercise for patients with cardiovascular disease and diabetes. Current projects involve the use of tai chi in patients with chronic heart failure.

Botanist, Marcus Natural Product Program

Research Fellow

Dr. Harris does research on the ethnobotany, evolution, and phytochemistry of medicinal plants. Prior to starting at HMS, Eric earned his PhD in Integrative Biology from the University of California, Berkeley, specializing in research on Chinese medicinal plants. He received his BS in botany and anthropology from the University of Toronto. Eric’s role in the Natural Product Research program is in working closely with colleagues in China to help with plant collections, standard operating procedures, and quality assurance. In addition, he is responsible for plant data management.

Research Fellow in Medicine

Dr. Nicklas received both her B.A. in Human Biology and M.A. in Anthropology from Stanford University. After spending a year working in the National Nutrition Research Center in Mongolia as a Henry Luce Scholar, she received her M.D. from Harvard Medical School. She then completed her Internal Medicine residency at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. Dr. Nicklas’ research interests include nutrition, obesity, insulin resistance, and therapeutic lifestyle change.

Research Fellow in Medicine

Dr. Naqvi started his professional career in music as a percussionist and pianist, where he wrote, performed and recorded a wide array of music styles. He received his Bachelors of Science in Microbiology and Masters of Natural Science in Zoology and Biochemistry from Louisiana State University (LSU) in Baton Rouge. He continued at LSU Health Sciences Center (LSUHSC) in New Orleans to receive his M.D. He completed his residency in Internal Medicine at LSUHSC in Baton Rouge. His research interests are dietary prevention and modification of chronic inflammatory states, particularly cardiovascular disease, periodontitis and cognitive decline. He practices integrative medicine at the Marino Center for Progressive Health in Cambridge, MA. He will complete a Masters of Public Health degree in June of 2009 from the Harvard School of Public Health.

Research Fellow in Medicine

Dr. Nerurkar received her B.A. in Sociology from Barnard College of Columbia University. Prior to clinical medicine, she worked in global health. She received her MPH from Columbia University's School of Public Health and worked in Geneva at a WHO collaborating center on HIV policy in sub-Saharan Africa. She completed her Internal Medicine residency at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey's Cooper Hospital (UMDNJ). She was the Director of Student Health at UMDNJ Cooper Hospital, where she maintained a primary care practice. She is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania's course in Mindfulness Meditation for Health Care Providers. Her research interest is in mind-body therapies and lifestyle-related chronic disease. She teaches at Harvard Medical School and practices Integrative Medicine at The Brigham & Women's Hospital Osher Clinical Center.

Research Fellow in Medicine

Dr. Nguyen holds a PhD in Medical Biophysics and Computing/Medical Informatics from the University of Utah School of Medicine. He trained as a fellow at the Harvard School of Public Health’s Department of Biostatistics and Harvard Medical School’s Decision System Lab. Between 1987 and 1996, Dr. Nguyen was an Instructor of Medicine at Harvard and developed an innovative medical informatic system at Children’s Hospital Boston. Dr Nguyen previously worked as Clinical Analytic director for McKession pharmaceutical and as Senior Principal Consultant for Keane’s Data Warehouse consulting arm. Prior to starting as a Fellow, Dr. Nguyen is a research associate at the Osher Research Center and served as resident statistician for various clinical trials. He teaches statistics and applied mathematics at Curry College and consults on statistics and business development issues in Vietnam.

Research Fellow in Medicine

Dr. Trojanovich earned a Masters of Medical Science degree from Drexel School of Medicine and his MD degree from the University of Colorado School of Medicine. He completed his internal medicine residency at Jewish Hospital in Cincinnati where he was honored as both the Intern of the Year and the Senior Resident of the Year. He worked an extra year as Chief Medical Resident. He is board certified by the American Board of Internal Medicine. Dr. Trojanovich served as a combat medic in the United States Army and Army Reserves for eight years. His main clinical and research interests are in the care of the elderly and integrative therapies.

Research Fellow in Medicine

Dr.Erwin Wells received her B.A. with highest honors in Psychology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and her M.D. from the Brody School of Medicine at East Carolina University. She then completed her residency in Neurology at the University of Virginia. She will complete her Masters of Public Health in June 2010 from the Harvard School of Public Health. She is fascinated by the mind-body connection and her research interests include the neurophysiology of meditation and yoga and the placebo response. She is a board certified Neurologist and maintains a clinical practice at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. She also teaches first year medical students at Harvard Medical School.