Health

GROWING U.S. DISPARITIES IN HEALTH NOT INEVITABLE NEW WAY TO GROW BLOOD VESSELS

The Foundation for the History of Women in Medicine (FHWIM) is offering two fellowships to support research conducted at the Center for the History of Medicine and its Archives for Women in Medicine, located at Harvard Medical School’s Countway Library.

If a student is struggling, stressed-out, or having trouble coping with pressure, the University is here to listen and help. That’s the theme behind this year’s “Speak Out, Mental Health at Harvard,” a weeklong series of events to engage the student body in active campus dialogues about mental health.

Oleksiy Skrynnyk was just a carefree 9-year-old, his fishing rod slung over his shoulder as he walked home from his favorite pond. He never saw the low-hanging power line. Twenty-two hundred volts shot through his body, entering his right shoulder and exiting out his left foot. The electrocution burns were extensive. His right arm was so badly injured it had to be amputated. Though the level of care in Oleksiy’s homeland was what saved his life, his mother, Olga Zabolotina, knew her son needed more.

John M. Giurini, Chief of the Division of Podiatric Medicine and Surgery at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and an Associate Professor in Surgery at Harvard Medical School was installed…

A new study led by researchers at the Joslin Diabetes Center has found that women with type 1 diabetes who reported taking less insulin than prescribed had a three-fold increased…

Manipulating levels of nitric oxide, a gas involved in many biological processes, may improve the disorganized network of blood vessels supplying tumors, potentially improving the effectiveness of radiation and chemotherapy. …

Recently (Jan. 6-21), 15 Harvard and 16 Brazilian students participated in an intensive experience: the first Harvard-Brazil Collaborative Course on Infectious Diseases. The course, which was offered by the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) and the Santa Casa de Misericórdia de São Paulo Medical School (FCMSCSP) with the support of the Harvard University Brazil Studies Program at the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies (DRCLAS), included lectures and informal discussions and visits to clinics, hospitals, laboratories, and community programs.

Researchers have identified a key reason why people make mistakes when they try to predict what they will like. When predicting how much they will enjoy a future experience, people tend to compare it to its alternatives — that is, to the experiences they had before, might have later, or could be having in the present moment. But when people actually have the experience, they tend not to think about these alternatives and their experience is relatively unaffected by them.

Harvard Stem Cell Institute (HSCI) and Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) researchers have taken a major step toward eventually being able to reprogram adult cells to an embryonic stem cell-like state without the use of viruses or cancer-causing genes.

Shedding new light on the cognitive rift between humans and animals, a Harvard University scientist has synthesized four key differences in human and animal cognition into a hypothesis on what exactly differentiates human and animal thought.

During the course of the presidential nomination campaigns, some candidates’ health care plans have been described as “socialized medicine.” Historically, that phrase has been used to criticize health reform proposals in the United States.

Despite all the progress and promise of modern medicine, most of the world is still struggling to get the fundamentals of medical care: simple diagnostic tests, affordable medicines, and efficient…

Useful genetic maps showing the inner workings of drug-resistant malaria parasites, and where they live around the world, are being created as part of a major drive against the persistent tropical disease.

How to lose weight and keep it off? Consume fewer calories and burn more calories than you consume, says Rena Wing, director of the Weight Control & Diabetes Research Center at…

Human birth control pills are creating problems in the sex lives of fish.

Three studies presenting newly identified genetic variants that are associated with increased susceptibility to prostate cancer were published recently (Feb. 10) on the advance online site of Nature Genetics. The 10 gene variants double the number of known variants associated with risk of the disease and are the result of genomewide association studies.

Elevated levels of anxiety may cause women with ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS), the most common form of noninvasive breast cancer, to overestimate their risk of recurrence or dying from breast cancer, suggests a study led by researchers at Harvard-affiliated Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston.

By looking at infant brain activity, researchers have found that babies as young as 3 months old are sensitive to differences in numerical quantity. Additionally, the scientists were able to see that babies process information about objects and numbers in different, dissociated parts of the brain, which is also the case in older children and in adults.

It was close to midnight one day this week in Durban, South Africa, when Harvard AIDS researcher Bruce D. Walker switched on his computer and made a visit to 104 Mt. Auburn St. in Cambridge.

Researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH), the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH), Harvard Medical School (HMS) and Partners In Health (PIH) have received a grant of $14 million over five years from the National Institutes of Health to study multi-drug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) and extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB). The goal of the project is to better understand the development and transmission of drug-resistant tuberculosis and to identify practical approaches to reduce the public health burden created by this disease.

Money, love, health, innocence or guilt — even finding the right wine. Who doesn’t want to know more? “Real-Life Statistics: Your Chance for Happiness (or Misery),” offered this semester by Harvard’s Department of Statistics, will explore the critical tools to make good judgments in matters large and small.

Harvard neuroscientist Venkatesh N. Murthy has a sunny second-floor office on Divinity Avenue, where he is a professor in Harvard’s Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology. In one corner is a set of weights and a soccer ball — both untouched in over a year, he said, because of an intensely busy schedule.

In nearly every country in the world, there is a shortage of kidneys for transplantation. In the United States, around 73,000 people are on waiting lists to receive a kidney. Yet 4,000 die every year before the lifesaving organ is available.

Harvard Stem Cell Institute (HSCI) and Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) researchers have taken a major step toward eventually being able to reprogram adult cells to an embryonic stem cell-like state…

It’s increasingly believed among scientists that nearly every cancer contains small populations of highly dangerous cells — cancer stem cells — that can initiate a cancer, drive its progression, and create endless copies of themselves. On the theory that targeting these cells might be an effective therapeutic strategy, researchers around the world have begun isolating stem cells from various kinds of cancers. Now, for the first time, researchers at Children’s Hospital Boston and Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) have found a strategy that selectively targets cancer stem cells for destruction, successfully halting one of the deadliest cancers — melanoma — in mice.

Major differences in protocols used to determine brain death; Harvard researchers achieve stem cell milestone; Consortium links chromosome abnormality to autism disorders; Blocking HIV infection; Oral osteoporosis meds appear to reduce the risk of jaw degradation; Six new genetic variants linked to heart-disease risk factor; Gene variation may elevate risk of liver tumor in some patients; Cancer stem cells can be targeted for destruction

People who receive high doses of the chemotherapy drug methotrexate to treat a certain type of brain tumor appear to live longer than people receiving other treatments, according to research published in the Jan. 29 issue of Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

While hunting among chimpanzees is a group effort, key males known as “impact hunters” are highly influential within the group. They are more likely to initiate a hunt, and hunts rarely occur in their absence, according to a new study. The findings, which appear in the current issue of Animal Behaviour, shed light on how and why some animals cooperate to hunt for food, and how individual variation among chimpanzees contributes to collective predation.

Risk factors for suicidal thoughts, plans, and attempts are consistent across countries, and include having a mental disorder and being female, younger, less educated, and unmarried. So says new research from Harvard University and World Health Organization (WHO) World Mental Health Survey Initiative. The study examined both the prevalence and the risk factors for suicide across 17 countries, and is the largest, most representative examination of suicidal behavior ever conducted.