Featured series 
Tag: Cancer
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Nation & World
CYCLOPS genes an Achilles’ heel in tumors?
Researchers at Harvard-affiliated Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT used new technology to explore a 19-year-old theory, discovering what may be an Achilles’ heel for cancer cells: essential genes disrupted in the process of becoming cancerous that can be attacked further with drug therapy.
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Nation & World
Concerns about climate change, health
A team of researchers led by James G. Anderson, the Philip S. Weld Professor of Atmospheric Chemistry, warns that a newly discovered connection between climate change and depletion of the ozone layer over the U.S. could allow more damaging ultraviolet (UV) radiation to reach the Earth’s surface, leading to increased incidence of skin cancer.
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Nation & World
Cancer care comes to Rwanda
Paul Farmer, chair of Harvard Medical School’s Department of Global Health and Social Medicine and co-founder of Partners In Health, announced the opening of Butaro Cancer Center of Excellence, which will serve as the first national cancer referral facility in rural Rwanda.
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Nation & World
Transforming cancer treatment
Professor Martin Nowak is one of several co-authors of a paper, published in Nature on June 28,that outlines a new approach to cancer treatment that could make many cancers manageable, if not curable, by overcoming resistance to certain drug treatments.
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Nation & World
When skin cancer cells resist drug treatment
Harvard researchers have found that although tailored drugs can eradicate melanoma cells in the lab, they often produce only partial, temporary responses in patients. Researchers have now learned that normal cells that reside within the tumor, part of the tumor microenvironment, may supply factors that help cancer cells grow and survive despite the presence of…
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Nation & World
HMS, Dana-Farber scientists receive 2012 Alpert Prize
HMS faculty Kenneth Anderson, Paul Richardson, and Alfred Goldberg are three of four researchers being honored for their research and development of a pioneering cancer drug.
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Nation & World
A time was had by all
A fond look back at the memorable events of Harvard’s 375th year.
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Nation & World
Harvard staffers, faculty raise $11,700
Red Sox-themed fundraiser nets $11,700 for the Jimmy Fund.
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Nation & World
AACR honors Alan D’Andrea
The American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) presented Alan D. D’Andrea with the 52nd Annual AACR G.H.A. Clowes Memorial Award for his work in understanding cancer survival and progression.
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Nation & World
Size matters in drug delivery
A new study led by researchers at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and Massachusetts General Hospital has found that normalizing blood vessels within tumors, which improves the delivery of standard chemotherapy drugs, can actually block the delivery of larger nanotherapy molecules.
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Nation & World
Bunches of support
Harvard’s 25th annual Daffodil Days campaign to help raise money for the American Cancer Society is under way through March 1, with gifts scheduled for delivery on March 19.
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Nation & World
Triumphs against smallpox, polio, AIDS
Harvard researchers have been at the forefront of many battles against devastating diseases, leading pivotal breakthroughs against scourges from 1800 to the present.
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Nation & World
Tumor cells can prevent tumor spread
A new study from Harvard-affiliated Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center finds that a group of little-explored cells in the tumor microenvironment likely serves as an important gatekeeper against cancer progression and metastasis.
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Nation & World
Harvard professors partner in unique approach
The first-of-its-kind strategy is credited for curing at least five of 10 children at a rural Rwandan hospital; two others are in remission while receiving chemotherapy, and three children have died. The long-distance team approach was designed by Harvard Medical School instructor in medicine Sara Stulac, director of pediatrics for Partners In Health.
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Nation & World
A data bank to battle cancer
Researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute are collaborating on a massive, long-term effort to collect and analyze tumor tissue from 10,000 cancer patients annually. The researchers hope the data will enable them to understand better how tumors behave, while providing opportunities to test new therapies.
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Nation & World
Relief for stem cell transplant patients
In a study that seems to pivot on a paradox, scientists at Harvard-affiliated Dana-Farber Cancer Institute have used an immune system stimulant as an immune system suppressor to treat a common, often debilitating side effect of donor stem cell transplantation in cancer patients. The effect, in some cases, was profound.
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Nation & World
Cancer clues from another species
Researchers have decoded the genome of an unlikely ally in the fight against cancer and aging, the naked mole rat, to find clues on why it resists the disease and lives 10 times as long as ordinary mice.
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Nation & World
Survival strategy of cancer cells
A new study led by a scientific team at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School has uncovered another key mechanism that cancer cells use as part of their survival strategy — and once again it seems that they are using an enzyme called PKM2 to their advantage.
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Nation & World
Affordable cancer treatments available
Report reveals that readily available and affordable cancer prevention, treatment, and pain relief interventions could decrease deaths and improve the lives of millions in developing countries.
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Nation & World
Disrupting a cancer gene
Scientists at Harvard-affiliated Dana-Farber Cancer Institute have successfully disrupted the function of a cancer gene involved in the formation of most human tumors by tampering with the gene’s “on” switch and growth signals, rather than targeting the gene itself.
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Nation & World
Cancer stem cells made, not born
In cancer, tumors aren’t uniform: they are more like complex societies, each with a unique balance of cancer cell types playing different roles. Understanding this “social structure” of tumors is critical for treatment decisions in the clinic because different cell types may be sensitive to different drugs.
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Nation & World
Grant backs study of cancer-obesity link
The Harvard School of Public Health has been awarded a five-year, $10 million grant from the National Cancer Institute for a new research center to study the relationship between obesity and cancer.
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Nation & World
When to alter cancer screenings
Not only is it important for physicians to be fully informed about any cancer in their patients’ family histories, but a massive new study led by a Harvard researcher at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and a University of California scientist indicates that it is important to update that history whenever there are contemporaneous changes in…
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Nation & World
Finding ovarian cancer’s vulnerabilities
In their largest and most comprehensive effort to date, researchers from the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, a Harvard affiliate, examined cells from more than 100 tumors, including 25 ovarian cancer tumors, to unearth the genes upon which cancers depend. They call it Project Achilles.
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Nation & World
Three researchers named Runyon Fellows
The Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation, a nonprofit organization focused on supporting innovative early career researchers, has named 18 new Damon Runyon Fellows, including three from Harvard.
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Nation & World
Where there’s smoke, there’s ire
Speakers at a Harvard School of Public Health conference on smoking hailed the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy’s work to give the Food and Drug Administration new regulatory power over tobacco products and said, if wielded properly, it could prove a key weapon for better health.
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Nation & World
How ovarian cancer spreads
Harvard Medical School researchers find that ovarian cancer cells use mechanical force to move through tissue and colonize additional organs.
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Nation & World
Increasing odds for survival
A duo of drugs, each targeting a prime survival strategy of tumors, can be safely administered and is potentially more effective than either drug alone for advanced, inoperable melanomas, according to a phase 1 clinical trial led by Harvard investigators at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.
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Nation & World
It was a very good year
With its 360th Commencement, another chapter in Harvard’s history draws to a close, as marked by highlights from this year. Reinstallation of ROTC, ongoing innovation in science and humanities, and Wynton Marsalis at Harvard top off some of the year’s historical benchmarks.
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Nation & World
Making an art of science
Graduating senior Kevin Shee threw himself into Harvard’s dance scene after arriving as a freshman, but he leaves after nourishing a second love — science — that will take him to a research career after graduation.
