Medicine

By Carolyn Cao ’28 Over the past few years, Ozempic and Wegovy have become incredibly popular, being used as a “short-cut” for weight loss with prominent public figures like Elon Musk and Andy Cohen promoting it. Though Ozempic and Wegovy were originally created to help treat type 2 diabetes and obesity, new studies indicate that there may be some unintended positive benefits; both may reduce alcohol cravings in people with Alcohol Use Disorder, or AUD. Ozempic and Wegovy work via their active ingredient, semaglutide, which is highly similar to natural hormone GLP-1, having over 90% sequence homology. (GLP-1 regulates appetite and insulin production in the body.) Due to this  structural similarity, semaglutide functions in the human body just like GLP-1: it acts as a GLP-1 ...

By Ellie Su ’28 A recent study showcased the impressive capacity of therapy dogs to calm anxiety within stressful emergency room environments. In a recent publication, the presence of therapy dogs decreased the anxiety of both children and parents in pediatric emergency departments. In a recent publication led by senior health investigator Jessica Chubak and colleagues, nearly half of the patients who interacted with therapy dogs observed a substantial diminishment of anxiety, and more than 40% of participants reported a significant improvement in general well-being (Chubak et al., 2024). Though the concept of bringing therapy dogs directly into medical settings may sound unorthodox, science tells us there are strong biological and psychological factors at work. How T...

By Grace Zheng ’28 What are Stem Cells? Stem cells are one of the most fascinating types of cells. Stem cells are undifferentiated cells, which do not have a specific function or any specialized structures. They are essential for growth, repair, and regeneration. Stem cells have the ability to develop, or differentiate, into specialized cells, and they can also reproduce themselves. This plethora of unique abilities is the reason why stem cells are a very popular topic of research among today’s medical scientists. Stem Cell Classifications In biology, differentiation is when unspecialized cells become specialized for a specific purpose. For example, an undifferentiated stem cell could differentiate into a skin cell. Therefore, stem cells can be classified by their differentiati...