Explore the world of trailblazing health tech that's turning texts into thoughts, 3D printing bionic limbs — and even growing human brains inside a lab. From precision medicine to the intriguing marriage between your mind and wearables, these talks may change the way you think about your health.

TED Studies, created in collaboration with Wiley, are curated video collections — supplemented by rich educational materials — for students, educators and self-guided learners. The speakers in Rethinking Cancer give the talk of their lives about the prevention, detection and treatment of one of the leading causes of death worldwide: cancer. In t...

A lot happens behind the scenes before medicine gets to you. Get a deeper understanding of the drugs and vaccines you may use with these compelling facts and figures.

What he writes is important, and he does so in an elegant, engaging fashion. This is a moving, deeply humane book. — Los Angeles Review of Books About the book The 'laws of medicine' are really laws of uncertainty, imprecision, and incompleteness. They apply equally to all disciplines of knowledge where these forces come into play. They are law...

When Robert Gupta was caught between a career as a doctor and as a violinist, he realized his place was in the middle, with a bow in his hand and a sense of social justice in his heart. He tells a moving story of society's marginalized and the power of music therapy, which can succeed where conventional medicine fails.

Chemist Lee Cronin is working on a 3D printer that, instead of objects, is able to print molecules. An exciting potential long-term application: printing your own medicine using chemical inks.

Alan Russell studies regenerative medicine -- a breakthrough way of thinking about disease and injury, using a process that can signal the body to rebuild itself.

Our medical systems are broken. Doctors are capable of extraordinary (and expensive) treatments, but they are losing their core focus: actually treating people. Doctor and writer Atul Gawande suggests we take a step back and look at new ways to do medicine -- with fewer cowboys and more pit crews.

Social justice advocate and law scholar Dorothy Roberts has a precise and powerful message: Race-based medicine is bad medicine. Even today, many doctors still use race as a medical shortcut; they make important decisions about things like pain tolerance based on a patient's skin color instead of medical observation and measurement. In this sear...

Sad but true: Many of the cures and vaccines our world desperately needs -- for illnesses millions of people have -- just aren't being produced or developed, because there's no financial incentive. Thomas Pogge proposes a $6 billion plan to revolutionize the way medications are developed and sold.

In the 1940s, cancer was a condition shrouded in fear and denial, rarely discussed in public. Now there's a healthy public discourse and billions of dollars in research funding dedicated to it. In this talk, writer and microbiologist Dr. Nathalia Holt describes how a landmark 1940s PR campaign helped prompt that paradigm shift. "Changing how a d...

Have you ever wondered what happens to a painkiller, like ibuprofen, after you swallow it? Medicine that slides down your throat can help treat a headache, a sore back, or a throbbing sprained ankle. But how does it get where it needs to go in the first place? Céline Valéry explains how your body processes medicine. [Directed by Daniel Gray, nar...

Eric Topol says we'll soon use our smartphones to monitor our vital signs and chronic conditions. At TEDMED, he highlights several of the most important wireless devices in medicine's future -- all helping to keep more of us out of hospital beds.

Robert Gupta, violinist with the LA Philharmonic, talks about a violin lesson he once gave to a brilliant, schizophrenic musician -- and what he learned. Called back onstage later, Gupta plays his own transcription of the prelude from Bach's Cello Suite No. 1.

Each of our bodies is utterly unique, which is a lovely thought until it comes to treating an illness -- when every body reacts differently, often unpredictably, to standard treatment. Tissue engineer Nina Tandon talks about a possible solution: Using pluripotent stem cells to make personalized models of organs on which to test new drugs and tre...

It's an increasingly common sight in hospitals around the world: a nurse measures our height, weight, blood pressure, and attaches a glowing plastic clip to our finger. Suddenly, a digital screen reads out the oxygen level in our bloodstream. How did that happen? Sajan Saini shows how pairing light with integrated photonics is leading to new med...

As we recklessly warm the planet by pumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, some industrial emissions also produce particles that reflect sunshine back into space, putting a check on global warming that we're only starting to understand. Climate activist Kelly Wanser asks: Can we engineer ways to harness this effect and further reduce warm...

Get to know your heart a bit better with insightful talks on this powerful, life-sustaining organ.

The secret behind medicine that uses messenger RNA (or mRNA) is that it "teaches" our bodies how to fight diseases on our own, leading to groundbreaking treatments for COVID-19 and, potentially one day, cancer, the flu and other ailments that have haunted humanity for millennia. RNA researcher Melissa J. Moore -- Moderna's chief scientific offic...

The age of bioengineering is upon us, with scientists' understanding of how to engineer cells, tissues and organs improving at a rapid pace. Here, how this could affect the future of our physical bodies.

Vigilance. Grit. Resilience. Valerie Montgomery Rice, the president and CEO of Morehouse School of Medicine, shares where she learned these key qualities of successful leadership, offering three lessons for anyone who wants to overcome their fears, stand up for what’s right and build opportunity for all.

As companies introduce AI into the workplace to increase productivity, an uncomfortable paradox is emerging: people are often responsible for training the very systems that might displace them. AI ethics advocate Madison Mohns presents three leadership principles to embrace technological progress while prioritizing your coworkers' well-being — p...

David Brenner is developing a unique type of light to kill viruses safely.

An exploration of what it would like if the medical industry practiced a more patient-first mentality.

The pandemic forced the world to work together like never before and, with unprecedented speed, bore a new age of health and medical innovation. Physician-scientist Daniel Kraft explains how breakthroughs and advancements like AI-infused antiviral discoveries and laboratory-level diagnostic tools accessible via smartphones are paving the way for...

From her stoop in Brooklyn, singer-songwriter Madison McFerrin shares her experience singing "The Star-Spangled Banner" for Hilary Clinton's presidential campaign in 2016 -- a moment that pushed her to become her best self -- and performs "TRY," a song she wrote about chasing your dreams despite what others say.

Patience Mthunzi wants to use lasers to deliver medicines more effectively.

Pharmaceutical companies often only patent drugs they can monetize, creating synthetic versions of remedies already available in nature. In this quick talk, physician and entrepreneur Jeff Chen offers a path to affordable, effective natural medicines — for everyone.

This past year, scientists racing to stop the novel coronavirus delivered vaccines at a pace and scale the world has never seen before. Adrian Hill, director of Oxford University's vaccine research institute, recounts how he and his team developed the AstraZeneca vaccine. He explains why the challenges were as much about logistics as science, an...

We worry about what our doctors will tell us -- and so do they. Doctors, scientists and medical researchers weigh in on health care and better health practices.