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HarvardScience
By: Alvin Powell/
May 20, 2013
Researchers from Harvard-affiliated Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) are the first to report that synthetic silicate nanoplatelets (also known as layered clay) can induce stem cells to become bone cells without the need of additional bone-inducing factors.
Mourning that vexes the future
In a new paper, Professor of Psychology Richard McNally and graduate student Don Robinaugh say that while people suffering from complicated grief — a syndrome marked by intense, debilitating emotional distress and yearning for a lost loved one — had difficulty envisioning specific events in their future, those problems disappeared when they were asked to imagine an alternate future that included their lost loved one.
Two Harvard Stem Cell Institute researchers have identified a protein in the blood of mice and humans that may prove to be the first effective treatment for the form of age-related heart failure that affects millions of Americans, a study says.
Lower health care costs may last
A slowdown in the growth of U.S. health care costs could mean a savings of as much as $770 billion on Medicare spending over the next decade, Harvard economists say.
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Giants behind, challenges ahead
Fifty years after its founding, the Harvard School of Public Health’s Department of Global Health and Population took time for reflection and a look ahead on April 25 during an all-day symposium at the School.
Potential diabetes breakthrough
Researchers at the Harvard Stem Cell Institute have discovered a hormone that holds promise for a dramatically more effective treatment of type 2 diabetes, a metabolic illness afflicting an estimated 26 million Americans.
The Forum at Harvard School of Public Health explored the high cost of inaction on children’s health on Tuesday, from long-term disabilities caused by failing to provide AIDS medications to major opportunities lost because of poor health, education, and economic opportunity.
Using a new, stem cell-based, drug-screening technology that could reinvent and greatly reduce the cost of developing pharmaceuticals, researchers at the Harvard Stem Cell Institute have found a compound that is more effective in protecting the neurons killed in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis than are two drugs that failed in human clinical trials.
Members of the Harvard community responded to the Boston Marathon attacks and offered thoughts about both the physical and mental injuries they caused.
Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius talked tobacco taxes and health care reform Monday during an appearance at the Forum at Harvard School of Public Health.
The Mediterranean Diet has been lauded as a healthy eater’s dream, but it’s still a mystery to many Americans. Greek cooking guru Diane Kochilas and cardiac health expert Frank Sacks — who have worked to enhance the diet’s presence in Harvard’s dining hall menus — visited groups across Harvard last week to share insights and recipes.
Eating fish gives older adults an edge
Older adults who have high blood levels of omega-3 fatty acids — found almost exclusively in fatty seafood — may be able to lower their overall mortality risk by as much as 27 percent and their mortality risk from heart disease by about 35 percent, according to a new study.
Progress, puzzles in halting malaria
Among the many challenges facing scientists and public health officials seeking to erase malaria from the globe are the reservoirs of parasites hidden in asymptomatic carriers or dormant in patients’ livers, said analysts at the Harvard School of Public Health.
Major weight loss tied to microbes
In a study conducted by Harvard and MGH researchers, gut microbes of mice underwent drastic changes following gastric bypass surgery, and transfer of the microbes into sterile mice resulted in rapid weight loss.
Professor of Psychology Matthew Nock is the author of a new paper, co-authored with other Harvard faculty, which examines suicidal thoughts and behaviors among adolescents. In a recent conversation with the Gazette, Nock discussed his research, and the resources available at Harvard for students and others in the community.
A report by Harvard researchers has concluded that the benefits of stopping smoking far exceed the risks from any associated weight gain.
The effects of stress on health, well-being, and even creativity were the focus of the Forum at Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) this week.
Saving women during childbirth
Throughout history, more women have died in childbirth than men have died in battle, Mahmoud Fathalla, founder of the Safe Motherhood Initiative, told attendees at the recent Global Maternal Health Conference in Arusha, Tanzania, co-sponsored by Harvard School of Public Health’s Maternal Health Task Force (MHTF) and Management and Development for Health (MDH), a Tanzanian nonprofit.
Environment counts, Alzheimer’s research suggests
A new study led by Harvard Medical School Professor Dennis Selkoe provides specific, pre-clinical scientific evidence supporting the concept that prolonged and intensive stimulation by an enriched environment may have beneficial effects in delaying one of the key negative factors in Alzheimer’s disease.
Work led by Yun Zhang, associate professor of organismic and evolutionary biology, shows how the pathway of insulin and insulinlike peptides plays a critical role in helping to regulate learning and memory.
In January, when the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) published a meta-analysis of 100 studies that probed the relationship between body mass index and mortality — studies that found slightly overweight people have lower all-cause mortality than normal weight and underweight people — media around the globe trumpeted the news.
Cutting costs, buoying health care
A Harvard Medical School lecturer and former head of the federal agency overseeing Medicare and Medicaid shared his experiences pushing for improved health care quality, saying that teamwork, cost curtailment, and a focus on patients are keys to success.
Peter Turnbaugh and co-authors Corinne Ferrier Maurice and Henry Joseph Haiser show that as drugs are administered, the activity of human gut microbes can change dramatically. Understanding how those changes affect drug chemistry could help researchers to design drugs that work more effectively and antibiotics that more specifically target pathogens.
‘Sunshine vitamin’ looks a little brighter
Adequate levels of vitamin D during young adulthood could cut the risk of adult-onset type 1 diabetes by as much as 50 percent, according to new findings by researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health.
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