Kathryn T. Hall (born 1964 in Oxford) is a leader in placebo research, Assistant professor of medicine part-time and molecular biologist who directs research or teaches at several institutions, including the following: Deputy Commissioner of Population Health and Health Equity at Boston Public Health Commission.Organizational Chart: Deputy Director: Kathryn Hall Boston Public Health Commission, February 2022 Director of Basic and Translational Research at Osher Center for Integrative Medicine, at Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH) and Harvard Medical School (HMS).Kathryn T. Hall, PhD: Director of Basic & Translational Research, Osher Center For Integrative Medicine: Harvard Medical School And Brigham and Women's Hospital Director of Placebo Genetics in the Program in Placebo Studies, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.Kathryn Tayo Hall, PhD, MPH, Class of 1996 Harvard Edu: Perspectives of Change Assistant Professor of Medicine Part-time at Harvard Medical School (HMS).Kathryn Tayo Hall, Ph.D. Harvard Catalyst Profiles, Jan 9, 2022 Associate Molecular Biologist in the Brigham and Women's Hospital: Division of Preventive Medicine.Kathryn T. Hall, PhD, MPH Brigham and Women's Hospital: Division of Preventive Medicine Faculty

She has published many papers and one book about the biological basis of the placebo effect.Publications of KT Hall National Library of MedicineKathryn Hall at Google Scholar Hall's placebo research has been the subject of featured articles in The Atlantic,"Is the Placebo Effect in Your DNA?" By Cari Romm, The Atlantic, 13 April 2015 Science Magazine,"Outsmarting the placebo effect" By Kelly Servick, Science Magazine Vol 345 Issue 6203, 19 September 2014 The Economist,"Are you easily pleased?" Science & technology: Genes and the placebo effect, The Economist, 2 May 2015 The New York Times"What if the Placebo Effect Isn't a Trick?" By Gary Greenberg, The New York Times, 7 Nov 2018 and Discover magazine."Power of the Placebo" By Erik Vance, Discover magazine, 20 Jul 2014

Biography Hall got her PhD in Microbiology and Molecular Genetics from Harvard University in 1996. Before returning to Harvard in 2010 she worked in biotech, first at Wyeth and then at Millennium Pharmaceuticals. In 2012 she joined the Fellowship in Integrative Medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) and then in 2014 got a MPH in Public Health from Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health.

She also has am MA in Documentary Film from Emerson College.

Placebo research Hall is a leader in placebo research.Interview with Dr. Kathryn Hall on Placebo Research Osher Center For Integrative Medicine, Harvard Medical School And Brigham and Women's Hospital, 28 July 2021 She asserts that, "The placebo effect is a real neurological response involving multiple parts of the brain."Placebos expert Kathryn T Hall: ‘The effect can rival painkillers like ibuprofen or even morphine’ by Zoë Corbyn, 8 Oct 2022, The Guardian Noting that researchers have been using neuroimaging to see how the brain responds to placebos and that there are correlations between response and brain anatomy, she began to focus on genetics and its effect on brain structure.

Working with Ted J Kaptchuk, Hall investigated the neurotransmitter pathways in the brain that mediate placebo effects, and they found genetic markers that correlate with these pathways.Kathryn T Hall1 and Ted J Kaptchuk, "Genetic biomarkers of placebo response: what could it mean for future trial design?" Program in Placebo Studies, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Medical School, 1 Apr 2013, doi:10.4155/cli.13.8. This led the researchers to the idea of using genetic screening to identify placebo responders which in turn could improve patient care. She has also written about genetic markers in papers co-authored with Irving Kirsch and Paul M Ridker.Kathryn T Hall, Paul M Ridker, et al., "Genetic variation at the coronary artery disease risk locus GUCY1A3 modifies cardiovascular disease prevention effects of aspirin", European Heart Journal, June 2019, DOI:10.1093/eurheartj/ehz384

Hall has summarized her research in the 2022 book, Placebos.Placebos by Kathryn T Hall, MIT Press Essential Knowledge series (October 2022),

Selected papers Tori L. Cowger, Eleanor J. Murray, Jaylen Clarke, Mary T. Bassett, Bisola O. Ojikutu, Sarimer M. Sánchez, Natalia Linos, and Kathryn T. Hall. 'Lifting Universal Masking in Schools — Covid-19 Incidence among Students and Staff'. The New England Journal of Medicine, November 2022 Hall KT, Loscalzo J, Kaptchuk TJ., 'Genetics and the Placebo effect: the placebome', Trends Mol Med., May 2015 Hall KT, Lembo AJ, Kirsch I, et al., 'Catechol-O-methyltransferase val158met: Polymorphism Predicts Placebo Effect in Irritable Bowel Syndrome'. PLoS One, 2012 Hall KT, Boumsell L, Schultze JL, et al., 'A Novel Leukocyte Semaphorin that Promotes B-cell Aggregation and Differentiation', Natl Acad Sci U S A., October 1996

References

Further reading Gavin Francis, "What Do You Expect?" (review of Kathryn T. Hall, Placebos, MIT Press, 2022; 201 pp; and Jeremy Howick, The Power of Placebos: How the Science of Placebos and Nocebose Can Improve Health Care, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2023; 304 pp.), The New York Review of Books, vol. LXXII, no. 11 (26 June 2025), pp. 30–32. "[O]ur culture has become so medicalized and reductionistic that warm and empathetic care, with its immense proven benefits for the way that a patient feels and heals, has been deprioritized to an optional extra rather than a core element of medicine. A rebalancing is in order: doctors need more time with their patients and, yes, more use of honest placebosbecause they work." (p. 32.)

External links website Kathryn Hall at Google Scholar