Health

A new study by investigators at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute demonstrates that vitamin D can protect some people with colorectal cancer by perking up the immune system’s vigilance against tumor cells.

Harvard-affiliated researchers have provided a see-through zebrafish and enhanced imaging that offer the first direct glimpse of how blood stem cells take root in the body to generate blood.

Harvard researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital have uncovered a way to enhance and prolong the therapeutic effects of mesenchymal stem cells in a preclinical model of Type 1 diabetes.

Imaging study finds the first evidence of neuroinflammation in brains of chronic pain patients, which could lead to new, targeted treatments.

A new study demonstrates that infants as young as 6 months can solve the invariance problem in speech perception.

New work by Harvard scientists challenges long-standing ideas on skull development in vertebrates.

Framingham Heart Study, PNAS Early Edition, Harvard Medical School Investigators working to unravel the impact of genetics versus environment on traits such as obesity may also need to consider a new factor: when individuals were born.

A team of researchers led by Harvard geneticist George Church at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering and Harvard Medical School has made big strides toward a future in which the predominant chemical factories of the world are colonies of genetically engineered bacteria.

A new study led by Harvard researchers identifies a key molecular mechanism behind the health benefits of dietary restriction, or reduced food intake without malnutrition.

A Harvard study found that men who did 20 minutes of daily weight training had less increase in age-related abdominal fat than men who spent the same amount of time doing aerobic activities.

A new study, authored by Collin McCabe, a doctoral student in Harvard’s Department of Human Evolutionary Biology, suggests that increased exposure to disease has played an important role in the evolution of culture in both humans and non-human primates.

Expanded medical care could greatly reduce Ebola fatalities, says Paul Farmer of Partners In Health.

When compared with a solitary strategy of producing offspring who then go on to produce their own offspring, a new Harvard study has found that eusociality is a high-risk, high-reward gamble.

Harvard Stem Cell Institute researchers have taken what they describe as “the first step toward a pill that can replace the treadmill” for the control of obesity.

Harvard’s Ernst Mayr Library is involved in a collaborative effort to digitize the handwritten journals of ornithologist William Brewster. The collaboration uses crowdsourcing for the transcription and video games as a way to check the work’s accuracy.

A study by Harvard researchers is the first to explore new parents’ attitudes toward genomic testing on newborns. The findings suggest that if such testing becomes available, there would be an interest among new parents, regardless of their demographic background.

Researchers at Harvard-affiliated Brigham and Women’s Hospital have found that greater adherence to the Mediterranean diet was associated with longer telomeres, which serve as a biomarker for aging.

Harvard researchers have uncovered an easily detectable, “premalignant” state in the blood that significantly increases the likelihood that an individual will go on to develop blood cancers such as leukemia, lymphoma, or myelodysplastic syndrome.

A new genetic test developed by Harvard Medical School physicians at the Dana-Farber/Brigham and Women’s Cancer Center checks cells of leukemia and other blood cancers for 95 genetic mutations, providing a quick genetic profile that physicians can use to make treatment decisions.

The recipient of a bilateral arm transplant and his surgeons appeared at a news conference on Tuesday to thank the donor’s family and to discuss the procedure.

Harvard Stem Cell Institute researchers at Boston Children’s Hospital and Harvard’s Department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology have successfully converted mouse and human skin cells into pain-sensing neurons that respond to a number of stimuli that cause acute and inflammatory distress.

Harvard-affiliated researchers have found that a monthlong residential program could be better than standard-of-care outpatient programs in helping young adults stay drug-free.

Investigators at the Harvard-affiliated Massachusetts General Hospital have developed a system to accurately track the dynamic process of falling asleep, something that has not been possible with existing techniques.

Vaughan Rees of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health shares his thoughts on the intense debate in Westminster over a push to ban tobacco sales. The ban was defeated, but the battle is not yet over.

Harvard Stem Cell Institute scientists at Brigham and Women’s Hospital have found the cellular origin of the tissue scarring caused by organ damage associated with diabetes, lung disease, high blood pressure, kidney disease, and other conditions.

A team of researchers has identified a key genetic variation that helps mosquitoes “smell” humans. The study could open the door to new strategies to ward off the pests.

Harvard Stem Cell Institute researchers have demonstrated that adult cells, reprogrammed into another cell type in a living animal, can remain functional over a long period. The work is an important advance in the effort to develop cell-based therapies for tissue repair, and specifically in the effort to develop improved treatment for diabetes.

The new Healthy Heart Score developed by researchers at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health gives individuals an easy way to estimate their 20-year risk of developing cardiovascular disease. The free Web-based survey can be found at www.healthyheartscore.com.

Researchers from around the world came to Harvard to examine the rise of international court cases on issues of sexual and reproductive rights.

Raphael Dolin of the Medical School discusses the evidence for hand washing, the timing of flu season, and who’s most vulnerable to serious complications.