Benjamin Houghtaling, PhD
Chief Scientific Officer
Wunderman Thompson Health
Storytelling to Help Improve Lives
During his prior successful career as a research scientist, Benjamin Houghtaling, PhD, realized that educating healthcare providers and their patients about the latest research and therapies is a crucial component in the healthcare industry goal of helping people live better, longer lives.
For nearly a decade, Ben’s passion for science and the advancement of medical knowledge has enabled him to become a true innovator of medical education and promotion. As Chief Scientific Officer at Wunderman Thompson Health, Ben creates masterful scientific narratives surrounding the latest preclinical and clinical information about particular disease states and treatment options, including numerous groundbreaking new therapies. A natural leader, he works closely with the scientific staff, and across multifunctional teams and disciplines within the organization, to deliver effective scientific strategy and elevate the educational impact of content.
Part of Ben’s success lies in his exceptional ability to identify and strategically interpret scientific information and communicate it succinctly. Additionally, he is masterful at creating, adjusting, and customizing the technical language and key educational elements of a scientific narrative for different audiences, supported by his well-honed sense of what information people need, and how to best provide it to them. Importantly, Ben’s education and awareness efforts also factor into the increasing interconnectivity of different audiences in the healthcare space, and how they communicate with each other as they come together to make healthcare decisions.
In one example of his outstanding work, Ben produced a bench-to-bedside narrative to better help several audiences understand how both preclinical evidence and newly released clinical trial results demonstrated why taking a particular oncology drug for a longer period of time than previously thought resulted in improved efficacy and patient outcomes. Ben’s talent for translating large amounts of complex data into a succinct, linear story, was essential in driving awareness and a deeper understanding of the clinical data, ultimately contributing to the adjustment of treatment practices to improve patient outcomes.
