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Health
Late treatment with letrozole can reduce cancer recurrence risk
Treatment with the aromatase inhibitor letrozole (Femara) can reduce the risk of breast cancer recurrence even when initiated one to seven years after a course of tamoxifen therapy. The results of a study involving women originally in the placebo arm of an international trial of letrozole will appear in the Journal of Clinical Oncology and…
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Health
Protein folding: Life’s vital origami
The way proteins fold, and the good and bad effects of this molecular phenomenon, are what keeps biologist Susan L. Lindquist busy. Lindquist Ph.D. ’76, a Radcliffe Fellow this year, is an award-winning professor and researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and a former director of the Whitehead Institute. She shared her insights…
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Science & Tech
Interdisciplinary conference takes micro, macro look at origins of life
How did we get here? That’s not the first line in a hangover joke. It’s a question that has been asked for centuries about the origins of life on Earth. At Harvard last week, an A-list of astronomers, physicists, Earth scientists, and chemists met in the Radcliffe Gymnasium to look at this and other fundamental…
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Health
Harvard faculty members discuss state of research
A panel of experts said Tuesday (March 11) that stem cell research’s biggest impact on patients’ health likely won’t come from therapies that inject stem cells or implant tissues made from them, but rather from the knowledge gained by examining diseased tissues grown from the cells.
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Campus & Community
HUSEC examines interdisciplinary and interSchool science efforts
When the Harvard University Science and Engineering Committee (HUSEC) gathered for its first meeting late last April, it was charged by not one, but two Harvard presidents. Then president-designate and now president Drew Faust told the 18 members of the new committee that theirs is both a unique and “historic” body, created to forge meaningful…
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Health
Inhaled TB vaccine more effective than traditional shot
A novel aerosol version of the most common tuberculosis (TB) vaccine, administered directly to the lungs as an oral mist, offers significantly better protection against the disease in experimental animals than a comparable dose of the traditional injected vaccine, researchers report this week (March 12) in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).…
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Health
Sobering look at ‘mind-body connection’
Mind-body medicine goes by many names today — including holistic, complementary, or alternative medicine. Regardless of what it’s called, many people embrace the ideas behind the mind-body connection and its effect on health, sometimes despite a lack of supporting scientific evidence. In her recently published book, “The Cure Within: A History of Mind-Body Medicine” (W.W.…
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Health
President testifies for increase in NIH funding
With the careers of a generation of young researchers threatened by five years of flat National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding, Harvard President Drew Faust and leaders of six other major research institutions were in Washington Tuesday (March 11) calling on Congress to repair the “Broken Pipeline” through which breakthroughs in the biomedical sciences should…
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Campus & Community
Harvard students named Soros Fellows
Four Harvard students are among the 30 recipients recently named Paul and Daisy Soros New American Fellows. Now in its 11th year, the fellowship helps prepare new Americans, including naturalized citizens, resident aliens, or the children of naturalized citizens, for opportunities for leadership in various fields in the United States.
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Campus & Community
Nieman Foundation announces I.F. Stone Award
The Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University is establishing an award that recognizes journalistic independence and honors the life of investigative journalist I.F. Stone. The I.F. Stone Medal will be presented annually to a journalist whose work captures the spirit of “independence, integrity, courage, and indefatigability” that characterized “I.F. Stone’s Weekly,” published from 1953…
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Health
Ecologist Jeremy Jackson to receive Roger Tory Peterson Medal
Jeremy Jackson, renowned marine ecologist of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, has been selected to receive the 11th annual Roger Tory Peterson Medal presented by the Harvard Museum of Natural History (HMNH). Jackson will deliver the Roger Tory Peterson Memorial Lecture on April 6 at 3 p.m. in the Science Center, 1 Oxford St.
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Health
Initial human trial of Type 1 diabetes treatment begun
Scientists at the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) have initiated a phase 1 clinical trial to reverse type 1 diabetes. The trial is exploring whether the promising results from the laboratory…
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Campus & Community
Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences hacking incident
A Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (GSAS) Web server that contained summaries of GSAS applicant data for entry to the Fall 2007 academic year, summaries of GSAS housing applicant data for the 2007-08 and 2006-07 academic years, and administrator information was hacked by an outsider and compromised in a way that the data…
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Science & Tech
President Faust testifies for increase in NIH funding
With the careers of a generation of young researchers threatened by five years of flat National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding, Harvard President Drew Faust and leaders of six other…
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Science & Tech
“…An important experiment for Harvard.”
When the Harvard University Science and Engineering Committee (HUSEC) gathered for its first meeting late last April, it was charged by not one, but two Harvard Presidents. Then President-designate and…
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Campus & Community
Sports in brief
SOPHOMORE O’CONNOR PINS DOWN WRESTLER OF THE YEAR AWARD; FREE LAX TIX; CRIMSON SAILING COASTS, LAGS, TO OPEN SPRING SEASON; COOL HEADS KEEP HOOPS ON TOP OF IVY HEAP
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Campus & Community
Big Red scare!
Skating in the comfy confines of Cambridge’s Bright Hockey Center this past Friday (Feb. 29), the No. 1 ranked Harvard women’s hockey team (currently 28-1-0) found itself in some pretty strange territory: down a goal in the third period. For a team on a 16-game victory streak, the Crimson’s struggle against a below .500 Cornell…
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Campus & Community
Not too late to get flu shot
With the flu season often lasting through April, there is still plenty of time and good reason to get immunized if you have not already. Following immunization, it takes approximately 10 days to develop antibodies and be protected.
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Campus & Community
PBHA, Harvard Club offer fellowship
The Phillips Brooks House Association (PBHA) along with the Harvard Club of Boston announced a new nonprofit management fellowship for graduating seniors of the College at a reception Monday (March 3). Beginning with the class of 2008, each year a graduating senior from Harvard College will have an opportunity to develop his or her nonprofit…
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Campus & Community
Co-House masters named for Currier House
Richard Wrangham and Elizabeth Ross have been appointed co-House masters of Currier House, beginning July 1, for the 2008-09 academic year. Shahram and Laura Khoshbin served as interim co-House masters of Currier House in 2007-08.
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Health
HSPH establishes new three-year grant program
The Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) has announced the establishment of the A.G. Leventis Foundation Fellowship Program with a three-year grant to support Cypriot/Greek and Nigerian students and scholars in public health.
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Health
Of flies and fish
During her schooldays in 1950s Germany, Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard rarely did her homework. In 1995, she won the Nobel Prize for physiology and medicine. Volhard is now director of the prestigious Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology in Tübingen, where, decades before, she had been an undistinguished biochemistry undergraduate. She was at Harvard this week (March…
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Health
Gene variants probably increase risk for anxiety disorders
Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) researchers — in collaboration with scientists at the University of California, San Diego, and Yale University — have discovered perhaps the strongest evidence yet linking variation in a particular gene with anxiety-related traits. In the March issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, the team describes finding that particular versions of a…
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Science & Tech
Pioneer in spintronics celebrates birthday
What might be Harvard’s oddest birthday party unfolded last week (Feb. 29-March 1). In a lecture hall at Maxwell Dworkin, 50 physicists gathered to share the latest research in spintronics, an emerging branch of their science concerned with the quantum spin states of electrons.
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Health
Biologist Venter will be visiting scholar at Origins of Life Initiative
J. Craig Venter, the visionary biologist and intellectual entrepreneur who was a leading figure in the decoding of the human genome, will join Harvard University as a visiting scholar at the University’s Origins of Life Initiative.
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Campus & Community
Black Students Association honors pair for activism, service
The Harvard Black Students Association honored Robert Lewis Jr., vice president for program at the Boston Foundation, and critically acclaimed actress Gabrielle Union with its Crimson and Black Leadership awards on Feb. 29. Crimson and Black is an annual event at the University designed to showcase the achievements of Harvard’s past black students while addressing…
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Campus & Community
Transition under way
Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences Michael D. Smith and Vice President for Alumni Affairs and Development Tamara Elliott Rogers have announced details of a transition that is under way in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) and University development offices.
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Nation & World
Panel assesses the ‘power of unreasonable people’
There’s a desire for change, especially among the young, “a spirit sweeping across this country and indeed across the world,” said David Gergen, professor of public service at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government (HKS) and director of its Center for Public Leadership. Gergen’s remarks at the John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum opened a…
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Arts & Culture
Exhibit reveals special in the mundane
The new — and, for now, last — exhibit at the Fogg Art Museum, “Long Life Cool White: Photographs by Moyra Davey,” offers a subtle distillation of the mundane into the profound. The retrospective collection of 40 color and black-and-white shots is culled from the artist’s 20-year career and takes its name from a common…