Featured series 
Tag: Children’s Hospital Boston
-
Health
A Genetic Cause for Iron Deficiency
The discovery of a gene for a rare form of inherited iron deficiency may provide clues to iron deficiency in the general population – particularly iron deficiency that doesn’t respond…
-
Health
Cancer stem cells can be targeted for destruction
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…
-
Health
Stem cell lines created from discarded IVF embryos
Human embryos that are discarded every day as medical waste from in vitro fertilization (IVF) clinics could be an important source of stem cells for research, according to a team…
-
Health
M. Judah Folkman, biomedical pioneer, dies at 74
One of Harvard Medical School’s (HMS) most forward-looking and innovative physician-scientists, M. Judah Folkman, died suddenly Monday (Jan. 14) after suffering a heart attack at the Denver International Airport in…
-
Health
Peter Black named President-Elect of World Federation of Neurosurgical Societies
Peter Black, MD, PhD, Franc D. Ingraham Professor of Neurosurgery at Harvard Medical School and founding chair of the Brigham and Women’s Hospital Department of Neurosurgery has been elected President-Elect…
-
Health
Chromosomal abnormality linked to autism disorders
Researchers have fitted another piece into the complex genetic puzzle that is autism, finding DNA deletions and duplications on a specific chromosome that they say explains one to two percent…
-
Science & Tech
Turning on cells with magnetic switches
Harvard scientists have figured out how to turn cells on and off using magnets, an advance with potentially broad applications as researchers around the world work to find new ways…
-
Health
Harvard researchers achieve stem cell milestone
Harvard Stem Cell Institute researchers have successfully turned back the clock on human skin cells, causing them to revert to an embryonic stem cell-like state from which they can become…
-
Science & Tech
Discovery of a key molecular switch regulating cancer stem cells
The role of stem cells in tumor development has, unexpectedly, been one of the biggest stories in cancer research over the past few years. These aren’t embryonic stem cells, but…
-
Health
Slow reading in dyslexia tied to disorganized brain tracts
Dyslexia marked by poor reading fluency — slow and choppy reading — may be caused by disorganized, meandering tracts of nerve fibers in the brain, according to researchers at Children’s…
-
Health
Study examines substance abuse prevalence among teens receiving routine medical care
Approximately 15 percent of middle and upper middle class teens receiving routine outpatient medical care in a New England primary care network had positive results on a substance abuse questionnaire,…
-
Health
It took a novel tack to discover an obesity gene
The racing sailboat was small, and Christoph Lange wanted to be sure he didn’t capsize and plunge into the Charles River again, as he’d done half a dozen times that…
-
Health
Massive microRNA scan uncovers leads to treating muscle degeneration
Researchers have discovered the first microRNAs–tiny bits of code that regulate gene activity–linked to each of 10 major degenerative muscular disorders, opening doors to new treatments and a better biological…
-
Health
Nine Harvard faculty members win NIH’s Pioneer, Innovator Awards
Nine Harvard researchers “well-positioned to make significant – and potentially transformative – discoveries in a variety of areas,” ranging from brain development to reprogramming stem cells, have been awarded special…
-
Health
Stem cells make new heart valves
Harvard researchers have coaxed adult stem cells into forming artificial heart valves that could one day mean fewer surgeries for children suffering from heart defects. The scientists, at Harvard-affiliated Boston…
-
Health
First robust genetic link to height in humans identified
Over a century ago, scientists first proposed that height is a complex trait — one influenced by environmental factors and multiple genes. While subsequent studies revealed that most of the…
-
Campus & Community
Authors fight misinformation on stem cell science
California’s Proposition 71, which committed the state to raising $3 billion for stem cell research, was a public policy ‘atom bomb that shifted the embryonic stem cell research debate from…
-
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…
-
Campus & Community
Muscle cells grown into working heart cells
Muscle cells have been used successfully to restore life-sustaining rhythms to ailing hearts, a first step toward developing natural pacemakers. Placed in a tiny raft of collagen implanted into the…
-
Health
Harvard Stem Cell Institute researchers granted approval
After more than two years of intensive ethical and scientific review, Harvard Stem Cell Institute (HSCI) researchers at Harvard and Children’s Hospital Boston have been cleared to begin experiments using…
-
Campus & Community
HMS researchers isolate nerve growth compound
Researchers at Harvard Medical School and Children’s Hospital Boston have isolated a molecule that stimulates the regrowth of damaged adult nerve fibers, providing new hope for those suffering from nerve…
-
Science & Tech
Discovery of calcium channel protein illuminates T cell signaling
A rare genetic defect in a family has helped researchers identify a key signaling component in T cells. The newly identified protein, Orai1, may be a piece of a long-…
-
Health
Seven children doing well with laboratory-grown organs
Three boys and four girls treated at Children’s Hospital Boston are the first people in the world to receive laboratory-grown organs. The children, aged 4 to 19, received bladders grown…
-
Health
Getting ACL tears to heal themselves
Orthopedic surgeon Martha Murray reports that a collagen gel enriched with blood platelets can stimulate natural healing of a partial anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) tear. Murray and colleagues at Harvard-affiliated…
-
Health
Protein underlies brain’s response to activity
Experience helps shape the brain, but how that happens – how synapses are remodeled in response to activity – is one of neurobiology’s biggest mysteries. Though axons and dendrites can…
-
Health
RNAi solution knocks down herpes infection
Ever since RNA interference hit the scene a few years ago as a way to selectively turn off gene expression, researchers have been investigating whether these small but powerful bits…
-
Campus & Community
Doctors overprescribing antibiotics for sore throats
Doctors treating sore throats are overprescribing antibiotics to more than a million U.S. children annually, unnecessarily driving up health costs, promoting the rise of drug-resistant bugs, and exposing children to…
-
Health
Kids too often prescribed antibiotics for sore throat
Each year, millions of children visit their family physician or pediatrician seeking treatment for sore throats. While a sore throat could indicate many common illnesses, physicians are often most concerned…