Health

No other stem cell is more thoroughly understood than the blood, or hematopoietic, stem cell. These occasional and rare cells, scattered sparingly throughout the marrow and capable of replenishing an…

In a groundbreaking study published today in the advance online edition of Nature, an international research team has for the first time measured which of the the malaria parasite’s genes are turned on or off during actual infection in humans, rather than in cell cultures, unearthing surprising behaviors and opening a window on the most critical aspects of parasite biology.

Statins, the popular class of drugs used to lower cholesterol, are among the most commonly prescribed medications in developed countries. But for some patients, accompanying side effects of muscle weakness…

Researchers at Harvard Medical School affiliate Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) have found that the attention of shift workers is most impaired on the first night shift following a string…

More than a third of men with early prostate cancer who participated in a study analyzing treatment choice received therapies that might not be appropriate, based on pre-existing problems with…

The rape itself was brutal enough, but the woman’s nearly severed hand shocked Susan Bartels. It was early November and her first day working at Panzi Hospital in Bukavu, a…

   “The field is moving at lightning speed,” said Harvard Stem Cell Institute (HSCI) Co-Director Doug Melton in response to just-published papers by Japanese researchers and researchers at the University…

Edward O. Wilson, Pellegrino University Professor Emeritus, has been selected from a pool of 235 nominees, from 227 institutions in 27 countries, to receive the 2007 Catalonia International Prize. Wilson…

An international collaboration led by researchers in the US and South Africa today announced the first genome sequence of an extensively drug resistant (XDR) strain of the bacterium Mycobacterium tuberculosis,…

New research from the Channing Laboratory at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) reports that frequent consumption of foods containing the flavonoid kaempferol, including non-herbal tea and broccoli, was associated with…

People who suffer from migraine headaches have differences in an area of the brain that helps process sensory information, including pain, according to a study published in the November 20,…

Barry R. Bloom, dean of the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH), yesterday announced that he will be stepping down from his position as the School’s leader at the end…

New research out of the Channing Laboratory at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) reports that frequent consumption of foods containing the flavonoid kaempferol, including nonherbal tea and broccoli, was associated with a reduced risk of ovarian cancer. The researchers also found a decreased risk in women who consumed large amounts of the flavonoid luteolin, which is found in foods such as carrots, peppers, and cabbage. These findings appear in the Nov. 15, 2007, issue of the International Journal of Cancer.

On a rainy Tuesday afternoon (Nov. 6), physicians, historians of science, and members of the general public gathered in the gymnasium at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study to hear about pain.

Men who are overweight or obese when diagnosed with prostate cancer are at greater risk of death after treatment, according to a new study in the Dec. 15 issue of Cancer, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society.

Sunshine Dwojak, a fourth-year Harvard Medical School student, was 26 when her mother died of heart disease, leaving behind three children. Dwojak’s mother was 48.

New research from Harvard’s Concord Field Station has shown that the common perception of a muscle as a single functional unit is incorrect and that different sections within an individual muscle actually do different work.

Researchers affiliated with the Channing Laboratory at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) report in the Nov. 12 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine evidence that men who take beta-carotene supplements for 15 years or longer may have less cognitive decline and better verbal memory than those who do not.

New research from Harvard’s Concord Field Station has shown that the common perception of a muscle as a single functional unit is incorrect and that different sections within an individual…

Men who are overweight or obese when diagnosed with  prostate cancer are at greater risk of death after treatment, according to a  new study in the December 15, 2007 issue…

New research out of the Channing Laboratory at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) reports that frequent consumption of foods containing the flavonoid kaempferol, including nonherbal tea and broccoli, was associated with a reduced risk of ovarian cancer.

Sunshine Dwojak, a fourth-year Harvard Medical School student, was 26 when her mother died of heart disease, leaving behind three children.  Dwojak’s mother was 48. “My grandmother said our family…

Our increasingly interconnected world has made it easier for information and disease to spread. However, a new study from Harvard University and Cornell University shows that fewer “degrees of separation” can make social networks too weak to disseminate behavioral change. The finding that “small world” networks are limited in their power to shape individual behavior could have implications for health care policy and the treatment of epidemics.

In the dark of the Sri Lankan cloud forest, the researchers’ only guide was the headlamps they used to light up the night, illuminating the cold, gray mist that drifted through the trees.

An international team of scientists Sunday (Nov. 4) announced the results of a systematic effort to map the genetic changes underlying lung cancer, the world’s leading cause of cancer deaths.

Researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard have discovered a gene involved in rheumatoid arthritis, a painful inflammation that affects 2.1 million Americans and which can destroy cartilage and bone within the afflicted joint.

Approximately 15 percent of teens receiving routine outpatient medical care in a New England primary care network had positive results on a substance abuse screening test, according to a report in the November issue of Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

An enormous effort to decode the DNA of one of science’s most important laboratory animals — the fruit fly — ended in success this week as a collaboration of researchers from 16 nations announced the sequencing of 10 fly species’ genomes.

Barry R. Bloom, Dean of the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH), is being awarded an Honorary Doctorate from Erasmus University Rotterdam in the Netherlands. The University annually awards one…

An enormous effort to decode the DNA of one of the most important laboratory animals — the fruit fly — ended in success this week as a collaboration of researchers…