Featured series 
Tag: Cancer
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Campus & Community
Newsmakers
It was announced Wednesday (Oct. 10) that the prestigious 2007 IZA Prize in Labor Economics goes to Harvard’s Richard B. Freeman. He was praised by the Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) in Germany for “fundamental contributions that have monumentally shaped modern labor economics.”
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Health
Harvard researchers find longevity, restricted diet link
Researchers believe they’ve found the cellular link between extremely restricted diets and dramatically lengthened lifespan and hope to use the knowledge to develop new treatments for age-related diseases.
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Nation & World
Global momentum for smoke-free society
In a perspective article in the April 12 issue of The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM), researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) and the Association of European Cancer Leagues describe the growing momentum for indoor smoking bans in countries across the globe. They identify Ireland’s pioneering 2004 comprehensive indoor smoking ban…
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Campus & Community
Daffodil Days, Harvard collect record amount
Consistently one of New England’s top sellers for the American Cancer Society’s annual Daffodil Days fundraiser, this year Harvard even managed to outdo itself. In this latest edition of the benefit, members of the University helped raise $45,843 to better every Harvard effort since the fundraiser’s inaugural run in 1988.
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Health
Vitamin D may protect against prostate cancer
With spring on the way, Harvard researchers advise men to get more sun, supplements, and seafood. All are good sources of vitamin D, and a large, lengthy study suggests the vitamin reduces risk of prostate cancer.
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Health
Brugge, colleagues urge Senate to increase NIH funding
Testifying Monday afternoon (March 19) before a U.S. Senate committee hearing on National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding, Harvard Medical School Cell Biology Department Chair Joan S. Brugge warned that “four years of flat [NIH] funding have had a devastating impact on the trajectory of cancer research,” threatening “the rapid progress in developing effective and…
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Health
Study questions ‘cancer stem cell’ hypothesis in breast cancer growth
A Dana-Farber Cancer Institute study challenges the hypothesis that “cancer stem cells” — a small number of self-renewing cells within a tumor — are responsible for breast cancer progression and recurrence, and that wiping out these cells alone could cure the disease.
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Health
Common prostate cancer therapy may carry risks
Androgen deprivation therapy – one of the most common treatments for prostate cancer – may increase the risk of death from heart disease in patients over age 65, according to a new study by researchers at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and other institutions.
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Campus & Community
Daffodil orders taken through tomorrow
Daffodil Days, one of the University’s most popular and colorful fundraisers, is accepting orders through Friday (March 2). Bouquets cost $7 each and include 10 stems. For $25, the bouquet includes a limited edition, collectible Boyds Bear teddy bear.
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Campus & Community
Still time to order daffodils, help American Cancer Society
Daffodil Days, one of the University’s most popular and colorful fundraisers, is now accepting orders from the Harvard community for the bright bouquets, which cost $7 each and include 10 stems. For $25, the bouquet includes a limited edition, collectible Boyds Bear teddy bear.
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Health
Practical way to target cancer cell mutations demonstrated
A study led by researchers at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Broad Institute of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University provides the first demonstration of a practical method of screening tumors for cancer-related gene abnormalities that might be treated with “targeted” drugs.
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Health
Study: Heed spiritual needs of cancer patients
People with advanced cancer felt they received little or no spiritual support from religious communities and the medical system, according to a new survey. However, those who did receive such support reported a better quality of life.
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Health
Saving your self from yourself
“Your gut is a complicated place,” notes Shannon Turley, an assistant professor of pathology at Harvard Medical School. In addition to processing food three or more times a day, an intestine needs to protect you from being damaged by yourself.
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Campus & Community
Sengupta wins $4.1 million ‘Era of Hope’ award for breast cancer advances
An assistant professor of medicine at Harvard has won a $4.1 million “Era of Hope” scholar award from the U.S. Defense Department’s Breast Cancer Research Program in support of his cutting-edge, interdisciplinary research aimed at fighting breast and other types of cancer.
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Campus & Community
Popular hair-loss drug impedes prostate cancer detection in middle-aged men
Researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) have found that the prostate specific antigen (PSA) cancer screening test is falsely lowered by a factor of two in middle-aged men who have taken Propecia (finasteride), a hair-loss drug used by more than 4 million men worldwide, for one year. These findings were published on Dec. 5,…
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Campus & Community
Risk of breast cancer may be associated with red meat consumption
Researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) have found that eating more red meat may be associated with a higher risk for hormone receptor–positive breast cancers in premenopausal women. This research is published in the Nov. 13 issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine. “This study suggests that dietary factors may be related to a…
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Health
Prostate treatment has risks
A treatment mainstay for prostate cancer puts men at increased risk for diabetes and cardiovascular disease, according to a large observational study published in the Sept. 20 Journal of Clinical Oncology. “Men with prostate cancer have high five-year survival rates, but they also have higher rates of noncancer mortality than healthy men,” says study author…
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Health
New insight into skin-tanning process suggests novel way of preventing skin cancer
Findings from a study led by researchers at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Children’s Hospital Boston have rewritten science’s understanding of the process of skin tanning – an insight that has enabled them to develop a promising way of protecting fair- skinned people from skin cancer caused by exposure to sunlight. The study, published in the…
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Health
Prostate cancer treatment increases risk of diabetes, heart disease
A treatment mainstay for prostate cancer puts men at increased risk for diabetes and cardiovascular disease, according to a large observational study published in the Sept. 20, 2006, Journal of Clinical Oncology. “Men with prostate cancer have high five-year survival rates, but they also have higher rates of non-cancer mortality than healthy men,” says study…
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Campus & Community
Sunshine may help prevent breast cancer
Evidence is piling up that boosting vitamin D intake may help prevent breast cancer. One major study of 1,760 women found that the higher the levels of vitamin D in a woman’s blood, the less the risk of breast cancer. Those who boasted the highest levels (more than 52 nanograms per liter) cut their risk…
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Health
Advances in chemotherapy improve outcomes in select breast cancers
Recent advances in chemotherapy have significantly reduced the risk of disease recurrence and death in breast cancer patients whose tumors are not hormone sensitive, according to a study by researchers at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and 10 other institutions. The findings were reported in the April 12, 2006 issue of the Journal of the American Medical…
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Health
Scientists discover new genetic subtypes of common blood cancer
Scientists at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and collaborators have identified four distinct genetic subtypes of multiple myeloma, a deadly blood cancer, that have different prognoses and might be treated most effectively with drugs specifically targeted to those subtypes. A new computational tool based on an algorithm designed to recognize human faces plucked the four distinguishing gene…
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Arts & Culture
Brigham pilot program connects people with family histories
A Harvard Medical School instructor at Brigham and Women’s Hospital is spearheading a pilot project to encourage Brigham employees to gather detailed family health histories to give health care officials an edge fighting inherited diseases.
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Health
Low-dose chemotherapy plus antiangiogenesis drug has activity in advanced breast cancer
Chemotherapy given in low, frequent doses – a novel strategy called “metronomic” delivery – achieved partial shrinkage of disease in some advanced breast cancer patients when given concurrently with an angiogenesis inhibitor, report researchers from Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston. In a pilot study of 55 patients, the combination of low-dose chemotherapy and the anti-VEGF…
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Campus & Community
Advances in stem cell biology presented at symposium
Stem cell science is revolutionizing the field of cancer biology, changing the understanding of the structure of some tumors, and potentially shifting the treatment emphasis from eliminating all tumor cells to the destruction of specialized cancer stem cells believed responsible for tumor growth. These findings were among several presented Dec. 2 at the Harvard Club…
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Campus & Community
Cancer link to ‘protein promiscuity’ being studied
When found at abnormally high concentrations, two proteins implicated in many human cancers have the potential to spur indiscriminate biochemical signaling inside cells, chemists at Harvard University have found. Their finding may expand scientists’ current understanding of oncogenesis – that cancer arises when an oncoprotein becomes overactive, ramping up the biochemical pathways that it normally…
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Health
Gingko may prevent ovarian cancer
Researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital have found initial laboratory and epidemiological evidence that, for the first time, demonstrates that ginkgo may help lower a woman’s risk of developing ovarian cancer. The findings were presented at the American Association for Cancer Research’s annual meeting in Baltimore on Oct. 31, 2005. In a population-based study, which…
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Health
Herceptin treatment lowers recurrence rate in early breast cancer
Encouraging findings came from an interim report from HERA, an ongoing large, international clinical trial of Herceptin, published Oct. 19, 2005 in the New England Journal of Medicine. The analysis was led by Richard Gelber, PhD, of Harvard and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, who led the statistical analysis for the HERA trial, which is one of…