149 stories tagged ‘Children’s Hospital Boston’
‘Stem cell tourism’ growing trend
A Harvard panel examined the problem of clinics around the world that provide stem cell treatments for intractable conditions. Although there is no medical evidence of the treatments’ effectiveness, such clinics have drawn thousands of patients from many countries.
Joseph E. Murray, emeritus professor of surgery at Harvard Medical School, whose many breakthroughs included the first successful kidney transplant, died Nov. 26, after suffering a hemorrhagic stroke at his Wellesley, Mass., home on Thanksgiving. He was 93.
Economist, neurosurgeon win MacArthurs
Raj Chetty, professor of economics, and Benjamin Warf, a neurosurgeon at Children’s Hospital Boston and associate professor at Harvard Medical School, are among 23 recipients of this year’s MacArthur Foundation fellowships, or “genius grants.”
Merging the biological, electronic
For the first time, Harvard scientists have created a type of cyborg tissue by embedding a 3-D network of functional, biocompatible, nanoscale wires into engineered human tissues.
Clot-busting technology goes straight to work
Researchers at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard have developed a novel biomimetic strategy that delivers life-saving nanotherapeutics directly to obstructed blood vessels, dissolving blood clots before they cause serious damage or even death.
Scientists restore basic vision in lab mice
A researcher at Harvard-affiliated Children’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School has regenerated optic nerves in laboratory animals and restored basic vision to the animals.
Chasing down a better way to run
From pondering prehistoric man to employing high-tech 3-D imaging, Harvard researchers are leaving no shoe unturned to discover why we run, and how we can do it better.
Harvard University announced today that well-known Boston business executive and philanthropist Joseph J. O’Donnell ’67, M.B.A. ’71, a longtime Harvard benefactor, and his wife, Katherine A. O’Donnell, have donated $30 million to the University.
Wyss Institute project targets sepsis
The Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard has been awarded a $12.3 million, four-year grant from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to develop a treatment for sepsis, a commonly fatal bloodstream infection.
Harvard researchers in the Children's Hospital Boston Informatics Program have created a model for predicting a drug’s tendency to cause birth defects.
Excess maternal weight gain increases birth weight, study finds
Expectant mothers who gain large amounts of weight tend to give birth to heavier infants who are at higher risk for obesity later in life. But it's never been proven that this tendency results from the weight gain itself, rather than genetic or other factors that mother and baby share.
Scadden, Zon win Hematology Society awards
Two Harvard professors will receive awards from the American Society of Hematology for their “significant contributions to the understanding and treatment of hematologic diseases.” David Scadden, who is co-director of the Harvard Stem Cell Institute, Jordan Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, professor of stem cell and regenerative biology, and director of the Center for Regenerative Medicine at [...]
Two HSCI groups find residual genetic ‘memory’ in iPS cells;
Two groups of Harvard Stem Cell Institute researchers have independently made similar discoveries about the characteristics of induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), but they have reached somewhat different conclusions about the implications of the findings. Groups lead by Konrad Hochedlinger at Massachusetts General Hospital and George Daley at Children’s Hospital Boston have each found that iPSCs retain some of [...]
Living, breathing human lung-on-a-chip
Researchers at Harvard's Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering have created a device that mimics a living, breathing human lung on a microchip. The device, about the size of a rubber eraser, acts much like a lung in a human body and is made using human lung and blood vessel cells.
Media reporting HSPH professor to be named head of federal Medicare, Medicaid programs
Major media outlets are this weekend reporting that President Barack Obama has selected Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) professor Donald M. Berwick, MD, MPP, to head the federal government’s Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services in the Department of Health and Human Services. The reports have not been confirmed by either the White House [...]
Efforts to prevent childhood obesity must begin early
Efforts to prevent childhood obesity should begin far earlier than currently thought — perhaps even before birth — especially for minority children, according to a new study that tracked 1,826 women from pregnancy through their children’s first five years of life. Most obesity prevention programs — including the national initiative recently launched by first lady [...]
Stem Cell Experiment Reverses Aging In Rare Disease
The team at Children's Hospital Boston and the Harvard Stem Cell Institute were working with a new type of cell called induced pluripotent stem cells or iPS cells, which closely resemble embryonic stem cells but are made from ordinary skin cells…
A series of tents now function as Port-au-Prince's primary hospital, as post-earthquake medical volunteers make ends meet during the night shift.
Hub lab writing the book on face-reading
Pity the Boston car salesman who negotiated across the table from Charles A. Nelson III, a Harvard neuroscience professor who runs the nation’s top laboratory studying how people learn to decode facial expressions…
Around the Schools: Harvard Medical School
When programmers at the Informatics Solutions Group at Children’s Hospital Boston were asked to create a grants database for researchers, they knew where to start. They simply asked the hospital’s affiliated Harvard Medical School (HMS) professors about their Facebook-surfing habits.
Study says 1 in 5 children lack vitamin D
At least 1 in 5 US children ages 1 to 11 don’t get enough vitamin D and could be at risk for a variety of health problems including weak bones, the most recent national analysis suggests. By a looser measure, almost 90 percent of black children that age and 80 percent of Hispanic children could be vitamin D deficient - “astounding numbers’’ that should serve as a call to action, said Dr. Jonathan Mansbach, lead author of the new analysis and a researcher at Harvard Medical School and Children’s Hospital in Boston…
Adult survivors of childhood cancer have an increased risk of suicidal thoughts, even decades after their cancer treatments have ended, according to a study led by Harvard researchers at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute (DFCI). The researchers report in the Journal of Clinical Oncology that nearly 8 percent of childhood cancer survivors said they have experienced suicidal [...]
Bringing new meaning to the term scientific paper
An insight from the labs of Harvard chemist George M. Whitesides and cell biologist Donald Ingber is likely to make a fundamental shift in how biologists grow and study cells – and it’s as cheap and easy as reaching for a paper towel. Ratmir Derda, a postdoctoral student co-mentored by Whitesides and Ingber at Harvard’s [...]
Three Harvard teams to receive $9 million each in federal funding for stem cell research
Three teams of Harvard Stem Cell Institute (HSCI) researchers are slated to receive $27 million over seven years in National Heart Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI) grants for the development of stem-cell based tools and treatments to understand and treat cardiovascular and blood disorders. The NHLBI Progenitor Cell Biology Consortium will consist of nine research [...]
Autism’s genetic roots examined in new government-funded study
Researchers at Harvard University and Children's Hospital Boston will sequence the genomes of at least 85 people diagnosed with autism in a bid to tease out the genetic basis for some cases of the neuropsychiatric disorder.
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