Featured series 
Tag: Disease
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Nation & World
Broad receives $100M gift to launch research center
The Stanley Medical Research Institute today announced a $100 million gift to the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard to launch a new research center that will combine the strengths of genomics and chemical biology to advance the understanding and treatment of severe mental illnesses.
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Nation & World
Lipsitch promoted professor of epidemiology at HSPH
Marc Lipsitch has been promoted to professor of epidemiology in the Department of Epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH). He first joined the School’s faculty as an assistant professor in 1999, becoming an associate professor in 2004.
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Nation & World
At Radcliffe, microbiologist explains ‘biocomplexity’
The scientist who revolutionized the study of cholera paid a visit to Harvard this week. On March 6, microbiologist and oceanographer Rita R. Colwell, a Johns Hopkins University public health researcher, delivered the last in a series of science talks in the 2006-2007 Dean’s Lecture series at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study.
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Nation & World
Harvard athletes grow bigger, better hearts
Strenuous exercise can cause a heart to grow as much as 10 percent and its chambers to enlarge, Harvard researchers have discovered after testing the University’s athletes. What they are learning from these studies could someday be applied to advising nonathletes about caring for their hearts.
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Nation & World
Cocoa shows promise as next wonder drug
A big problem facing Americans and Europeans is the dangerous rise in blood pressure with age, increasing their risk of heart disease and diabetes. Kuna Indians living off the Caribbean coast of Panama don’t have that problem. Norman Hollenberg, a professor of radiology at Harvard Medical School, is convinced that it’s because they drink more…
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Nation & World
Web quiz helps predict women’s health
Using data collected from more than 24,000 initially healthy American women, researchers from Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) have devised a new Web-based formula called the Reynolds Risk Score that for the first time more accurately predicts risk of heart attack or stroke among women. In addition to usual risk factors like cholesterol, blood pressure,…
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Nation & World
Genome-wide map will help fight diabetes
The Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Lund University, and Novartis have announced the completion of a genome-wide map of genetic differences in humans and their relationship to type 2 diabetes and other metabolic disorders. The announcement was made Monday (Feb. 12). All results of the analysis are being made accessible, free of charge, on…
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Nation & World
Spray-dry vaccine for TB developed
Bioengineers and public health researchers have developed a novel spray-drying method for preserving and delivering the most common tuberculosis (TB) vaccine. The low-cost and scalable technique offers several potential advantages over conventional freezing procedures, such as greater stability at room temperature and use in needle-free delivery. The spray-drying process could one day provide a better…
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Nation & World
Viruses get the silent treatment, any disease is a target
What do you do if you’re sure you’ve found a way to knock out the AIDS virus but you can’t get the medicine into infected cells? That was the problem faced by Judy Lieberman, a professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School.
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Nation & World
University’s ‘what-if’ planning for bird flu in sync with new CDC guidelines
Recently released U.S. government guidelines for combating a potential avian flu pandemic closely resemble response strategies that have been under development by Harvard planners since October 2005. Both the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) guidelines – available online at http://www.pandemicflu.gov/plan/community/community_mitigation.pdf – and Harvard’s ongoing “what-if” planning say that the best protection against a flu pandemic…
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Nation & World
Free rides to blood drive givers
In its efforts to make giving blood as convenient as possible, the Massachusetts General Hospital Blood Donor Center is currently providing free transportation to and from the Harvard campus (or back to anyplace in Boston/Cambridge) for groups of three or more donors.
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Nation & World
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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Nation & World
HSPH’s Andrew Spielman dies at 76
When Andrew Spielman was a graduate student in a malaria lab at Johns Hopkins University in 1952, his future was anything but certain. The use of DDT and other insecticides suggested a dramatic curtailing of the spread of mosquitoes – the carriers of the malaria pathogen and additional diseases. But, true to form, the insects…
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Nation & World
Marathon running can damage a heart
Running 26.2 miles is not for the faint of heart. Abnormalities in heart structure and function were found in men and women who ran the Boston Marathon in 2004 and 2005 by Harvard Medical School researchers.
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Nation & World
Brain pollution: Common chemicals are damaging young minds
Learning disabilities. Cerebral palsy. Mental retardation. A “silent pandemic” of these and other neurodevelopmental disorders is under way owing to industrial chemicals in the environment that impair brain development in fetuses and young children. That’s the conclusion of a data analysis by researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) and the Mount Sinai…
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Nation & World
New myeloma drug proves more potent, less toxic than thalidomide
A designer drug significantly less toxic than thalidomide has shown impressive activity in prolonging survival of patients with advanced multiple myeloma, report researchers from Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. A multicenter Phase II study of lenalidomide, an altered version of thalidomide, found a response rate of 25 percent among patients with myeloma that had recurred despite multiple…
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Nation & World
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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Nation & World
Jim Kim, former HIV director at WHO, to head HSPH center
Jim Yong Kim, a former director of the World Health Organization’s HIV/AIDS unit, has been appointed director of the François-Xavier Bagnoud (FXB) Center for Health and Human Rights at the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH). He will become François-Xavier Bagnoud Professor of Health and Human Rights at the School.
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Nation & World
HMS Dept. of Ophthalmology awarded RPB grant
The Harvard Medical School (HMS) Department of Ophthalmology was recently awarded a grant from Research to Prevent Blindness (RPB) for $110,000 to help support research into the causes, treatment, and prevention of diseases that cause blindness.
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Nation & World
Heat waves deadliest for blacks, diabetics
Heat waves, like the one that scorched the country in July, are more deadly for some people than for others. Poor blacks and diabetics fare the worst. As you might guess, extreme heat is also hard on the elderly. But as you might not guess, extreme cold has a greater impact.