Featured series 
Tag: Genetics
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Health
Exploring a world within a world
Lichens provide an avenue for student scientific exploration of plant complexity.
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Science & Tech
Neanderthal genome tells a human story
A preliminary draft of the genome of the Neanderthal, our closest evolutionary relative, reveals in exquisite detail how this long-extinct member of the Homo genus relates to modern humans.
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Nation & World
More ways of defining diversity
A study by a student at Harvard’s Graduate School of Education suggests that university staffs and students value having a diverse campus, but doubt that strict racial preferences are the right way to develop it.
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Health
Genes linked to breast cancer drug resistance
Harvard researchers at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute have discovered a “gene activity signature” that predicts a high risk of cancer recurrence in some breast tumors that have been treated with commonly used chemotherapy drugs. Despite their resistance to drugs of the anthracycline class, the breast cancers bearing this gene signature probably still will be vulnerable…
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Health
Tracking genetic traits over time
Fossils may provide tantalizing clues to human history, but they also lack some vital information, such as revealing which pieces of human DNA have been favored by evolution because they confer beneficial traits — resistance to infection or the ability to digest milk, for example. These signs can only be revealed through genetic studies of…
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Health
Natural flu-fighting protein discovered in human cells
Harvard researchers report having discovered a family of naturally occurring antiviral agents in human cells, a finding that may lead to better ways to prevent and treat influenza and other viral infections. In both human and mouse cells the flu-fighting proteins prevented or slowed most virus particles from infecting cells at the earliest stage in…
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Campus & Community
Bjork named Marshall Scholar
Harvard senior Samuel Bjork has won a prestigious Marshall Scholarship, allowing him to study for two years in the United Kingdom at the university of his choice.
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Health
Three-dimensional structure of human genome deciphered
Scientists have deciphered the three-dimensional structure of the human genome, paving the way for new insights into genomic function and expanding our understanding of how cellular DNA folds at scales that dwarf the double helix. In a paper featured this week on the cover of the journal Science, they describe a new technology called Hi-C…
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Health
Jack Szostak 2009 Nobel Laureate in Physiology or Medicine
Jack Szostak, a genetics professor at Harvard Medical School and Harvard-affiliated Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), has won the 2009 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine for pioneering work in the discovery of telomerase, an enzyme that protects chromosomes from degrading. The work not only revealed a key cellular function, it also illuminated processes involved in…
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Campus & Community
‘Immortality Enzyme’ Wins Three Americans Nobel Prize
Three American scientists, including Jack W. Szostak, genetics professor at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital, shared the Nobel Prize in medicine for research linked to telomerase, an “immortality enzyme” that allows cells to divide continuously without dying and could play a role in the uncontrolled spread of cancer cells.
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Campus & Community
Nobel Prize in Medicine shared by Harvard Medical School professor
Jack W. Szostak, a professor of genetics at Harvard Medical School, is one of three winners of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine this year, with Elizabeth Blackburn of the University of California, San Francisco, and Carol W. Greider of Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine….
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Health
Growing her own answers
Assistant Professor Kirsten Bomblies examines plant immune responses for clues about genetic divergence.
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Science & Tech
Genetic sex determination let ancient species adapt to ocean life
A new analysis of extinct sea creatures suggests that the transition from egg-laying to live-born young opened up evolutionary pathways that allowed these ancient species to adapt to and thrive in open oceans. The evolutionary sleuthing is described today in a letter in the journal Nature by scientists at Harvard and the University of Reading…
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Health
Genome of Irish potato famine pathogen decoded
A large international research team has decoded the genome of the notorious organism that triggered the Irish potato famine in the mid-19th century and now threatens this season’s tomato and potato crops across much of the United States Published today in the online edition of the journal Nature, the study reveals that the organism boasts…
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Health
Maternal, paternal genes’ tug-of-war may last well into childhood
An analysis of rare genetic disorders in which children lack some genes from one parent suggests that maternal and paternal genes engage in a subtle tug-of-war well into childhood, and possibly as late as the onset of puberty. This striking new variety of intra-family conflict, described by Harvard researchers in today’s edition of the Proceedings…
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Health
Study pinpoints novel cancer gene and biomarker
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute scientists’ discovery of a cancer-causing gene – the first in its family to be linked to cancer – demonstrates how the panoramic view of genomics and the close-up perspective of molecular biology are needed to determine which genes are involved in cancer and which are mere bystanders. The findings are reported in…
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Health
Researchers learn how mutations extend life span
In the sense that organisms existing today are connected through a chain of life – through their parents, grandparents, and other ancestors – almost a billion years back to the first animals of the pre-Cambrian era, an animal’s reproductive cells can be considered to be immortal. These germline cells generate their offspring’s somatic cells –…
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Health
After a century, link between chromosomal instability and centrosome defects in cancer cells is unraveled
In a new study, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute scientists disprove a century-old theory about why cancer cells often have too many or too few chromosomes, and show that the actual reason may hold the key to a novel approach to cancer therapy. Since the late 19th century, scientists have attributed the surplus or shortage of intact…
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Health
Genetic testing for breast or ovarian cancer risk may be greatly underutilized
Although a test for gene mutations known to significantly increase the risk of hereditary breast or ovarian cancer has been available for more than a decade, a new study finds that few women with family histories of these cancers are even discussing genetic testing with their physicians or other health-care providers. In an online report…
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Science & Tech
Scientists create custom three-dimensional structures with ‘DNA origami’
By combining the art of origami with nanotechnology, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute researchers have folded sheets of DNA into multilayered objects with dimensions thousands of times smaller than the thickness of a human hair. These tiny structures could be forerunners of custom-made biomedical nanodevices such as “smart” delivery vehicles that would sneak drugs into patients’ cells,…
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Health
Broad scientists to sequence multiple myeloma samples
The Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation (MMRF) announced today a collaboration with the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT to systematically uncover the molecular changes underlying multiple myeloma by whole-genome sequencing of individual patient tumors. The MMRF will provide both patient samples for analysis as well as funding for the project. All data from this collaboration…
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Health
Study finds genetic links to age of first menstrual period, menopause
Newly identified gene variants associated with the age at which females experience their first menstrual period and the onset of menopause may help shed light on the prevention of breast and endometrial cancer, osteoporosis, and cardiovascular disease.
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Health
MicroRNA discovered to play role in DNA repair
Among their many roles as message couriers and gene regulators, microRNA molecules also help control the repair of damaged DNA within cells, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School scientists report in the May issue of Nature Structural & Molecular Biology. The finding not only demonstrates the unexpected versatility of microRNA (miRNAs) in the life…
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Health
For cancer cells, genetics alone is poor indicator for drug response
In certain respects, cells are less like machines and more like people. True, they have lots of components, but they also have lots of personality. For example, when specific groups of people are studied in aggregate (conservatives, liberals, atheists, evangelicals), they appear to be fairly uniform and predictable. But when looked at one person at…
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Health
Newly identified genetic variants found to increase breast cancer risk
A large-scale effort to identify genetic markers of breast cancer has uncovered two common genetic variants that increase risk of the disease in women of European ancestry. The paper, published in advance online in Nature Genetics on March 29, is part of an ongoing effort led by a team of researchers from the Harvard School…
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Health
Study identifies human genes required for hepatitis C viral replication
Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) researchers are investigating a new way to block reproduction of the hepatitis C virus (HCV) — targeting not the virus itself but the human genes the virus exploits in its life cycle. In the March 19 Cell Host & Microbe, they report finding nearly 100 genes that support the replication of…
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Health
Taking a stride toward synthetic life
Harvard scientists have cleared a key hurdle in the creation of synthetic life, assembling a cell’s critical protein-making machinery in an advance with both practical, industrial applications and that advances the basic understanding of life’s workings. George Church, a genetics professor at Harvard Medical School and member of Harvard’s Origins of Life Initiative, reported the…
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Health
Predicting risk of stroke from one’s genetic blueprint
A new statistical model could be used to predict an individual’s lifetime risk of stroke, according to the results of a study by Harvard researchers at the Children’s Hospital Boston Informatics Program.
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Health
Common gene variants increase risk of hypertension
A new study has identified the first common gene variants associated with an increased incidence of hypertension — a significant risk factor for heart attack, stroke, and kidney failure. The report, receiving early online release in the journal Nature Genetics, identifies variants in genes for proteins involved with cardiovascular response to stress that also appear…