  The study of heavy flavor production in relativistic heavy ion collisions is
an extreme experimental challenge but provides important information on the
properties of the Quark-Gluon Plasma (QGP) created in Au+Au collisions at RHIC.
Heavy-quarks are believed to be produced in the initial stages of the
collision, and are essential on the understanding of parton energy loss in the
dense medium created in such environment. Moreover, heavy-quarks can help to
investigate fundamental properties of QCD in elementary p+p collisions. In this
work we review recent results on heavy flavor production and their interaction
with the hot and dense medium at RHIC.
