Health

All Health

  • Stages of bloom

    Harvard researchers have solved the nearly 200-year-old mystery of how Rafflesia, the largest flowering plants in the world, develop.

  • Online, on site, in the field

    Harvard School of Public Health Dean Julio Frenk outlined a new vision for public health education Friday (Nov. 1), outlining courses that blend online, in-person, and in-the-field experiences and that take different forms throughout a professional’s life.

  • When depression and anxiety loom

    Two new books from Harvard Health Publications are aimed at people who have more than normal levels of anxiety and depression but fall short of clinical definitions.

  • Comparing charts on health

    U.S. and Chinese health officials gathered at Harvard’s Longwood Campus to discuss health care challenges facing both nations, including the rise of noncommunicable diseases and reforming health care systems.

  • New insight on wild nights

    New research suggests that, despite moonlight’s apparent hunting advantage, large predators such as lions are actually less active on the brightest nights, while many prey animals — despite the risk of being eaten — become more active.

  • A new era in disaster relief

    A report edited by a research scientist from the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative highlights the increasingly important role of social media and cellphones in disaster relief.

  • How ‘traffic light’ labels promote healthier eating

    A simple, color-coded system for labeling food items in a hospital cafeteria appears to increase customers’ attention to the nutritional value of their food choices, and encourage the purchase of the healthiest items.

  • TB’s links to diabetes

    Tuberculosis researchers from around New England gathered at the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT to examine the links between metabolic diseases such as diabetes and tuberculosis.

  • Improving cord blood transplants

    They began with a discovery in zebrafish in 2007, and now researchers at the Harvard Stem Cell Institute (HSCI) have published initial results of a Phase Ib human clinical trial of a therapeutic that could improve the success of blood stem cell transplantation. This marks the first time that HSCI has carried a discovery from the lab bench to the clinic.

  • Catching up on health care

    John McDonough of HSPH talks about the rollout of health insurance exchanges as part of the Affordable Care Act.

  • New test for Down syndrome

    Experts in child health gathered at Harvard Medical School on Tuesday for a symposium on how genome biology is changing children’s health.

  • A tiny, time-released treatment

    Targeted nanotherapy is the wave of the medical future, according to Omid Farokhzad, a Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital researcher who has two nanoparticle-based therapies in clinical trials and a slew of ideas for new ways to put the tiny capsules to work for human health.

  • Little improvement seen in antibiotic abuse

    Harvard research shows that while only 10 percent of adults with sore throat have strep, the only common cause of sore throat requiring antibiotics, the national antibiotic prescribing rate for adults with sore throat has remained at 60 percent.

  • Dream saga of WWII

    As part of a project by Professor Deirdre Barrett to resurrect a study started in 1940, a group of Harvard undergraduates probed the dreams of British officers captured early in World War II and held in a German prison camp.

  • Flu’s coming, but which kind?

    With a new flu virus appearing in China in April and a new SARS-like respiratory ailment appearing in the Middle East, the Gazette sat down with Harvard epidemiologist Marc Lipsitch to talk about the upcoming flu season.

  • Deconstructing motor skills

    Harvard researchers have found that the brain uses two largely independent neural circuits to learn spatial and temporal aspects of complex motor skills.

  • Narrative of the body, with a nasty twist

    Many modern chronic diseases result from mismatches between how our bodies evolved to be used and how we use them today, Harvard evolutionary biologist Daniel Lieberman writes in a new book.

  • Programming genetic code can lead to better designer genes

    The key to programming bacteria to follow orders has been found in its protein production. Researchers have learned that by using more rare words, or codons, near the start of a gene, they can remove roadblocks to protein production. The knowledge may mean new drugs and biofuels.

  • A foundation for future research

    Harvard researchers recently developed the most detailed “specificity profile” for Cas9 — a “machine” made of protein and RNA that can be programmed to target specific DNA sequences and to precisely cut, paste, and turn on or turn off genes. Future researchers will use the data when developing genetic tools and therapies.

  • Marriage linked to better cancer outcomes

    People who are married when diagnosed with cancer live longer than those who are not married. Married patients also tended to have cancers diagnosed at an earlier stage, according to Harvard researchers.

  • Legal remedies

    Attorneys, judges, scholars and activists interested in expanding health rights through the law were at the Harvard School of Public Health to discuss progress and challenges.

  • When bacteria fight back

    After the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued a report on the threat from drug-resistant bacteria, David Hooper, a physician at Massachusetts General Hospital and an authority on the subject, discussed the issues during a question-and-answer session.

  • 40% prevention rate for colorectal cancers

    A Harvard study has found that 40 percent of all colorectal cancers might be prevented if people underwent regular colonoscopy screenings. The new research also supports existing guidelines that recommend that people with an average risk of colorectal cancer should have a colonoscopy every 10 years.

  • Recalling a lab-led rescue

    Professor Howard Green stumbled across a skin transplant technique that involved growing keratinocytes into full skin layers, making him a pioneer in regenerative medicine.

  • The whys of rising obesity

    A panel discussion held by the Forum at Harvard School of Public Health probed the reasons for the modern epidemic of overeating and its particularly harmful effects on children, who are especially susceptible to food marketing.

  • The good life, longer

    By synthesizing the data collected in multiple government-sponsored health surveys conducted in recent decades, researchers from the National Bureau of Economic Research, Harvard University, and the University of Massachusetts were able to measure how the quality-adjusted life expectancy of Americans has changed over time.

  • Lifting the ‘family curse’

    Removing a woman’s healthy breasts might seem like a radical response to fears of breast cancer. But for women with genetic mutations that put them at high risk of developing the disease, it’s a step that can cut their vulnerability by 90 to 95 percent.

  • Summer in the lab

    Students from local high schools spent a chunk of the summer at work in a Harvard lab as part of program co-sponsored by the University’s Life Sciences Education program and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

  • DNA glue directs tiny gel ‘bricks’ to self-assemble

    A team of researchers at the Wyss Institute has found a way to self-assemble complex structures out of gel “bricks” smaller than a grain of salt. The new method could help solve one of the major challenges in tissue engineering.

  • Destination space

    Jessica Meir, an assistant professor of anesthesia at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital, is the latest member of the Harvard community given a chance to head to space, joining moon-walkers and Hubble Space Telescope repairmen as she trains to become a NASA astronaut.