Featured series 
Tag: Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
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Nation & World
Blankets to warm the heart
When Madeline Meehan makes her annual donation to Harvard Community Gifts, she won’t just be providing handmade blankets to sick children, she’ll also be helping her mother’s labor of love. This is one of a series of Gazette articles highlighting some of the many initiatives and charities the can be supported through the Harvard Community…
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Nation & World
‘Stem cell tourism’ growing trend
A Harvard panel examined the problem of clinics around the world that provide stem cell treatments for intractable conditions. Although there is no medical evidence of the treatments’ effectiveness, such clinics have drawn thousands of patients from many countries.
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Nation & World
Insulin and colon cancer linked
Researchers have found that colorectal cancer survivors whose diet and activity patterns lead to excess amounts of insulin in the blood have a higher risk of cancer recurrence and death from the disease.
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Nation & World
Aspirin’s impact on colorectal cancer
Harvard researchers at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute find that aspirin therapy can extend the life of colorectal cancer patients whose tumors carry a mutation in a key gene, but it has no effect on patients who lack the mutation.
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Nation & World
Flipping the switch that halts obesity
Flipping a newly discovered molecular switch in white fat cells enabled mice to eat a high-calorie diet without becoming obese or developing the inflammation that causes insulin resistance, report Harvard scientists from Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.
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Nation & World
CYCLOPS genes an Achilles’ heel in tumors?
Researchers at Harvard-affiliated Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT used new technology to explore a 19-year-old theory, discovering what may be an Achilles’ heel for cancer cells: essential genes disrupted in the process of becoming cancerous that can be attacked further with drug therapy.
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Nation & World
HMS faculty wins Clinical Scientist Development Award
Adam J. Bass, assistant professor in the department of medicine at Harvard Medical School and assistant professor of medicine at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, has won a Doris Duke Charitable Foundation 2012 Clinical Scientist Development Award.
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Nation & World
In obesity battle, beige is the new brown
Scientists at Harvard-affiliated Dana-Farber Cancer Institute have isolated a new type of energy-burning fat cell in adult humans, which they say may have therapeutic potential for treating obesity.
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Nation & World
When skin cancer cells resist drug treatment
Harvard researchers have found that although tailored drugs can eradicate melanoma cells in the lab, they often produce only partial, temporary responses in patients. Researchers have now learned that normal cells that reside within the tumor, part of the tumor microenvironment, may supply factors that help cancer cells grow and survive despite the presence of…
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Nation & World
HMS, Dana-Farber scientists receive 2012 Alpert Prize
HMS faculty Kenneth Anderson, Paul Richardson, and Alfred Goldberg are three of four researchers being honored for their research and development of a pioneering cancer drug.
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Nation & World
Using DNA as bricks and mortar
Researchers at Harvard’s Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering have figured out how to use short lengths of DNA as physical, rather than genetic, building blocks, creating letters and other shapes from the molecules in a proof of design that could one day lead to the creation of structures that, among other things, deliver drugs…
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Nation & World
Unraveling the secrets of the epilepsy diet
Researchers at Harvard Medical School and Harvard-affiliated Dana-Farber Cancer Institute have identified a protein that plays a key role in the long-mysterious effectiveness of an extremely low-calorie, high-fat, low-carbohydrate diet in suppressing epileptic seizures.
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Nation & World
AACR honors Alan D’Andrea
The American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) presented Alan D. D’Andrea with the 52nd Annual AACR G.H.A. Clowes Memorial Award for his work in understanding cancer survival and progression.
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Nation & World
Insight on triple-negative breast cancer
Scientists from Harvard-affiliated Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and their colleagues have found a genetic marker that predicts which aggressive “triple-negative” breast cancers and certain ovarian cancers are likely to respond to platinum-based chemotherapies.
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Nation & World
Bridging the gap
Two Harvard pediatric cancer researchers at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute (DFCI) and a scientist at Columbia University Medical Center have each received $100,000 Bridge Grants from a private foundation seeking to help make up for declining federal biomedical research funding.
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Nation & World
New subtype of ovarian cancer identified
Scientists at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute have identified a subtype of ovarian cancer able to build its own blood vessels, suggesting that such tumors might be especially susceptible to “anti-angiogenic” drugs that block blood vessel formation
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Nation & World
Right time for ‘end-of-life’ talk
A study by Harvard-affiliated Dana-Farber Cancer Institute finds that most terminally ill cancer patients discuss end-of-life care with physicians but that such discussions often occur late in their illness.
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Nation & World
Reaping benefits of exercise minus the sweat
A team led by researchers at Harvard-affiliated Dana-Farber Cancer Institute has isolated a natural hormone from muscle cells that triggers some of the key health benefits of exercise.
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Nation & World
Relief for the weary
Ninety instructors and junior faculty members at Harvard Medical School have received fellowships from the Eleanor and Miles Shore 50th Anniversary Fellowship Program for Scholars in Medicine. The program provides grants for recipients to hire lab help or to gain protected time by easing clinical duties.
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Nation & World
Rosenthal to depart HUHS
David Rosenthal, who has been director of Harvard University Health Services for 23 years and oversaw both physical and electronic modernization, is stepping down at the end of the academic year.
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Nation & World
A data bank to battle cancer
Researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute are collaborating on a massive, long-term effort to collect and analyze tumor tissue from 10,000 cancer patients annually. The researchers hope the data will enable them to understand better how tumors behave, while providing opportunities to test new therapies.
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Nation & World
Relief for stem cell transplant patients
In a study that seems to pivot on a paradox, scientists at Harvard-affiliated Dana-Farber Cancer Institute have used an immune system stimulant as an immune system suppressor to treat a common, often debilitating side effect of donor stem cell transplantation in cancer patients. The effect, in some cases, was profound.
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Nation & World
Alleviating radiation sickness
A combination of two drugs may alleviate radiation sickness in people who have been exposed to high levels of radiation, even when the therapy is given a day after the exposure occurred, according to a study led by scientists from Harvard-affiliated Dana-Farber Cancer Institute (DFCI) and Children’s Hospital Boston.
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Nation & World
Affordable cancer treatments available
Report reveals that readily available and affordable cancer prevention, treatment, and pain relief interventions could decrease deaths and improve the lives of millions in developing countries.
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Nation & World
Colon cancer connection
Scientists at Harvard-afilliated Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and the Broad Institute have found strikingly high levels of a bacterium in colorectal cancers, a sign that it might contribute to the disease and potentially be a key to diagnosing, preventing, and treating it.
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Nation & World
Dialing down sickle cell disease
Flipping a single molecular switch can reverse illness in an animal model of sickle cell disease, according to a study by Harvard researchers at Children’s Hospital Boston and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.
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Nation & World
The battle for medicine’s soul
Author and surgeon Atul Gawande says effective medicine requires high-quality care and solid research. But it also requires a willingness to adapt.
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Nation & World
Disrupting a cancer gene
Scientists at Harvard-affiliated Dana-Farber Cancer Institute have successfully disrupted the function of a cancer gene involved in the formation of most human tumors by tampering with the gene’s “on” switch and growth signals, rather than targeting the gene itself.
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Nation & World
Advances in type 2 diabetes drugs
Researchers from Harvard-affiliated Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and the Scripps Research Institute in Jupiter, Fla., report they have created prototype drugs having powerful anti-diabetic effects, yet apparently free — at least in mice — of dangerous side effects plaguing some current diabetes medications.
