From cancer treatment breakthroughs to the battle against COVID, these stories highlight the personal in medicine.

CAR-T is still largely experimental — a futuristic, staggering, frustrating therapy that sometimes works and sometimes does not. (Roger Harris/Science Photo Library) — (Roger Harris/Science Photo Library)

How to Build a Cure

CAR-T therapy removes T-cells, engineers them to attack cancer and reloads them into the body. It’s highly personalized, often cantankerous — and the most promising cancer treatment to come along in generations.

Clearing the Air

The vaping epidemic among youth is fueled by misconceptions and misleading advertising. This toxicologist-researcher-mom is on a mission to take back the truth.

COVID’s Weaponized Cells

Dr. Camille Ehre halted her work with cystic fibrosis research to study COVID’s impact on the lungs. Her images, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, were a sobering reminder of the infectious disease’s strength. Now she is looking at how the virus affects asthmatics, diabetics and cystic fibrosis patients.

First, Do No Harm

Doctors at one university clinic saw the opioid crisis forming and sounded early alarms that went unheeded. Now, treatment criteria they implemented on their own is part of the CDC’s recommended protocols.