Health

Offering a novel clue about the basic biology of pancreatic cancer, researchers at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute have confirmed a decades-old discovery of a link between blood type and the risk of developing the disease.

All across Cambridge and Boston, researchers gathered just before noon on March 9, 2009, for President Barack Obama’s announcement that the federal funding ban on stem cell research would be lifted.

There may be something to the adage about growing older and wiser. A lot, in fact, according to the new book by Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot, “The Third Chapter: Passion, Risk, and Adventure in the 25 Years After 50,” (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2009). The work explores the trend of learning and development for adults who are in their “third chapter” of life, or, as Lawrence-Lightfoot puts it, “the generative space that follows adulthood and middle age.”

Offering a novel clue about the basic biology of pancreatic cancer, researchers at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute have confirmed a decades-old discovery of a link between blood type and the risk…

Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences late today voted to approve a new undergraduate concentration, or major, in Human Development and Regenerative Biology. One of the first of its kind…

Although large numbers of headache sufferers, particularly individuals who struggle with migraines, attribute their pain to the weather, there has been little scientific evidence to back up their assertions. Now,…

Few physicians are eager to discuss end-of-life care with their patients. Yet such conversations may result in better quality of life for patients and could lower national health care expenditures…

Harvard scientists have cleared a key hurdle in the creation of synthetic life, assembling a cell’s critical protein-making machinery in an advance with both practical, industrial applications and that advances…

A survey of physicians has found broad support for the position that parents should not bank their newborns’ umbilical cord blood in a private blood bank unless another member of…

In 2008, 54 million Americans suffered with mental illness; 35,000 Americans committed suicide due to untreated depression; and 180,000 people died as a direct result of an untreated addiction. Congressmen Jim Ramstad (R-Minn.) and Patrick Kennedy (D-R.I.) spoke at the John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum Monday (March 2) on the truths and realities of mental illness and addiction in America.

The Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation has named six Harvard affiliates among its 13 new fellows. The recipients of this prestigious, three-year award are outstanding postdoctoral scientists conducting basic and translational cancer research in the laboratories of leading senior investigators across the country.

In 1831, the young Charles Darwin set off on the H.M.S. Beagle, a Royal Navy sloop bound for detailed surveys of South America. He took with him the first volume of the massive trilogy “Principles of Geology” by Scottish geologist Charles Lyell. (He had the other volumes sent later.)

Harvard researchers have established a link between the growth of blood vessels and the mechanical stresses caused by the environment within which the vessels grow, a new understanding that researchers hope can lead to novel disease treatments based on manipulating blood flow to living tissues.

On Feb. 12, the world celebrated the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin’s birth. Much was made of his key idea, natural selection, and how it still resonates and informs science in the 21st century.

As the United States transitions to a new administration, and as the health care crisis mounts, the debate about how to buttress primary care delivery with information technology is getting louder. While much of the attention — and controversy — is focused on how to better equip physicians, little focus appears to be aimed at how to better equip patients to improve their health care.

Bacteria are the oldest living organisms, dating back 4 billion years. So it is only logical that they have evolved ways to communicate.

New research from Brigham and Women’s Hospital finds that taking a combination of vitamins B6 and B12 and folic acid appears to decrease the risk of age-related macular degeneration (AMD) in women. This research is published in the Feb. 23 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine.

Researchers at Harvard Medical School (HMS) and the University of Minnesota have found that living just above the poverty line and having diabetes increases by 50 percent a woman’s chance of developing postpartum depression — a serious illness that affects about one in 10 new mothers.

Many popular diets emphasize either carbohydrate, protein, or fat as the best way to lose weight. However, there have been few studies lasting more than a year that evaluate the effect on weight loss of diets with different compositions of those nutrients.

A collaborative research effort spanning nearly a decade between Harvard researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and King’s College London (KCL) has identified a novel gene for inherited amyotrophic lateral…

The impact of the amyloid plaques that appear in the brains of patients with Alzheimer’s disease may extend beyond the deposits’ effects on neurons — the cells that transmit electrochemical…

A new study by Harvard researchers and colleagues shows that eating fewer calories leads to weight loss, regardless of where those calories come from. Many popular diets emphasize either carbohydrate,…

A new statistical model could be used to predict an individual’s lifetime risk of stroke, according to the results of a study by Harvard researchers at the Children’s Hospital Boston Informatics Program.

Harvard Medical School (HMS) researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital have found that taking a combination of vitamins B6 and B12 and folic acid appears to decrease the risk of…

Researchers at Harvard Medical School (HMS) and the University of Minnesota have found that living just above the poverty line and having diabetes increases by 50 percent a woman’s chance…

A 15-month study of 21,860 patients and 110 primary care physicians at 11 Harvard Vanguard health centers found that patients who received mailed reminders that they were due for colorectal…

Researchers at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Burnham Institute for Medical Research, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have reported the identification of human monoclonal antibodies (mAb) that…

Despite historic increases in health insurance coverage in Massachusetts, fewer than 20 percent of the commonwealth’s dentists accept patients insured through public programs such as Medicaid. Although state-subsidized insurance programs include dental care, the insurance mandate does not require employers to cover dental care. Dental schools are considered affordable sites for treatment, but even reduced fees are beyond the budgets of many families today.

Harvard President Drew Faust today renewed the University’s commitment to the vision of advancing interdisciplinary, collaborative science in general, and the Department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology (SCRB), the Harvard Stem Cell Institute (HSCI), and the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering (WIBIE) in particular.

The National Science Foundation-funded, three-year effort aims to create 3-D digital models of each species represented in Harvard’s collection of 12,000 bird skeletons.