Tag: Dana-Farber Cancer Institute

  • Health

    Human genome tally: Is recount in order?

    The surprising finding that humans have fewer genes than expected led to endless speculations and editorial comments. Would biotech stocks be threatened? Should humans be more humble? Were entirely new theories needed to explain our biological complexity? But these opionions all relied on the idea that comparing the draft sequences of the human genome that…

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  • Health

    Surgery without scalpels

    Paul Simmons, a 29-year-old Maine farmer, suffered from a lung tumor. In February 2001, at Harvard-affiliated Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, a probe containing a long needle was inserted into his chest and guided to the tumor by a scanning device. As Eric vanSonnenberg and his colleagues did the procedure, they could watch on…

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  • Health

    New cancer vaccine being tested

    In studies at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, tumors were eliminated in 25 percent of patients with widespread kidney and lethal skin cancers who received a new cancer vaccine. Another 25 percent showed encouraging shrinkage of large and small tumors. Some of the 75 people who have received the…

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  • Science & Tech

    Study says children with cancer often suffer needlessly

    “Since caregivers are very committed to curing their patients, it may be difficult for them to recognize when to incorporate palliative care into treatments, even when there’s little hope of cure,” notes Joanne Wolfe, an instructor at Harvard Medical School and lead author of a report, published in The New England Journal of Medicine, that…

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