Lyme disease, a bacterial infection transmitted through deer tick bites, is rapidly emerging in the U.S. and currently affects about 15,000 people each year. But incidence varies widely according to…
Researcher Karen Kuntz is currently developing a model to evaluate trends in colorectal cancer incidence and mortality. Nearly 50,000 Americans die each year from the disease, despite the fact that…
Research by Michael Greenberg, Harvard Medical School professor of neurology at Children’s Hospital, begins to explain how the embryonic brain’s stem cells decide whether to mature into nerve or glial…
Researchers at Harvard Medical School have identified a molecule that plays a central role in the initiation of joint formation. Studying limb formation in the developing chick, postdoctoral fellow Christine…
The conflicts between the two teams — one publicly funded, one private — that raced to sequence the human genome often drew more attention than the actual completion of the…
The scientific community believes that diseases that have long plagued the world can be controlled by vaccination. But vaccines won’t work unless they reach the people who need them most…
Previous work by Nadia Rosenthal of Harvard Medical School and her colleagues showed that injection of a virus directing the expression of a molecule known as insulin-like growth factor I…
Development of a vaccine against HIV-1 has long focused on the virus’s structural proteins. These molecules are expressed relatively late in the viral life cycle, after HIV-1 has decreased the…
Moderate alcohol consumption among people who have a specific version of a gene that metabolizes alcohol yields health benefits — less risk of heart disease and higher good cholesterol levels.…
Soft drinks are currently the leading source of added sugars in the daily diet of young Americans. Now, researchers have conducted the first long-term study to examine soda consumption and…
A recent Harvard study examined the association between fruit and vegetable consumption and breast cancer. The researchers drew participants from eight separate studies that spanned four countries and involved more…
The Boston Public Health Commission released 1999 statistics showing 2 percent of the city’s 15- to 19-year-olds have chlamydia. Boston’s minority girls were reported to have infection rates of almost…
Cells communicate, organize, share resources, and form direct connections with one another. They also are affected by damage to their neighbors. Research led by John Little of the Harvard School…
Cancer cells are thought to enter the lymph nodes through the lymphatic system — a multipurpose welter of vessels — but how the cells actually make their way out of…
Cell biologists have identified proteins capable of promoting heart development — at least in frogs and birds. They report that the proteins Dkk1 and Crescent, which inhibit regulatory proteins of…
Research done by Barbara Kahn, professor of medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, and colleagues now shows that glucose uptake by fatty tissue is important for maintaining the body’s…
In one type of fruit fly, Drosophilia melanogaster, but not in others, researchers found a gene that carries instructions for making a motor that gives this species’ sperm extra horsepower.…
More than 50 percent of colon cancers can be prevented through lifestyle changes and regular screening tests. The lifestyle changes are the same ones that reduce your risk of heart…
Professor Jun Liu studies repetitive patterns in the DNA that lies between genes. This material contains instructions for regulating the expression of genes, and it is involved in whether the…
The French government in 1998 decided to temporarily suspend hepatitis B vaccine programs in schools after several cases of multiple sclerosis were reported a few weeks after the vaccine had…
So cells can differentiate and maintain their specialized identities, large sections of unneeded genes must be turned off. During cell division, the stability of every chromosome depends upon sections of…
“Our research suggests that women can reduce their risk of thrombotic stroke by up to 48 percent by eating fish two to four times per week,” said Kathryn M. Rexrode,…
In 1993, Harvard researchers Dennis Selkoe and Howard Weiner got together over dinner to talk about how they might combine their expertise to find a better treatment for Alzheimer’s, a…
Familial dysautonomia is a neurodegenerative disease that mainly targets Ashkenazi Jews. The disease, which affects one in every 3,600 members of this group, impairs the development of the sensory and…
Although they have not yet identified the actual gene, researchers have evidence that a gene located on human chromosome 10 could be more potent than previous risk factors for late…
Men who give blood reduce the amount of iron in their bodies, but that does not result in a reduction in their risk of coronary heart disease (CHD) and heart…
A study asked parents to observe and record their children’s mouthing behavior over five non-consecutive days. Approximately 300 children showed a wide range of mouthing behaviors, from essentially none at…
“Before the development of insulin, diabetes was as deadly as many cancers are today,” says Harvard researcher Joseph Paul Eder, who is testing Endostatin on patients with advanced cancers. “In…
Abuse can damage the developing brain. Harvard researchers working at McLean Hospital in Belmont, Mass., have identified four types of brain abnormalities identified with abuse and neglect experienced in childhood.…
In findings published in the December 2000 issue of Nature Neuroscience, a team of Harvard Medical School scientists found that people who stay up all night after learning and practicing…
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