Featured series 
Tag: Harvard Medical School
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Health
Older adults found to fare better under sleep deprivation than younger adults
In a recent sleep study testing alertness and performance in sleep-deprived adults, researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) determined that healthy older adults handle sleep deprivation better than younger adults. The findings appeared online on May 3, in an advance online edition of the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society. After an extended period…
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Health
Predicting and tracking pandemics:
At the end of July 2008, major news agencies reported an outbreak of jalapeño-related salmonella that sickened more than 1,000 people in Mexico and the United States. It was the biggest outbreak of its kind in decades. Two months earlier, HealthMap.org had flagged the uptick in gastrointestinal illness, which signaled the emergence of a novel…
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Science & Tech
Dinosaur protein preserved over time
Ancient protein dating back 80 million years to the Cretaceous geologic period has been preserved in bone fragments and soft tissues of a type of duck-billed dinosaur, according to a study in the May 1 issue of Science. Led by scientists at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) and North Carolina State University (NCSU), the…
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Health
Smokers get help with the use of electronic health record
Although the dangers of smoking are well known, tobacco still remains the No. 1 cause of preventable death in the United States. The U.S. Public Health Service recommends that physicians ask all patients about their tobacco use and connect them to cessation services, but there are still many patients who are never asked about their…
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Health
Majority of new cases of diabetes in older U.S. adults could be prevented
Even as science searches for more clues about the causes of diabetes and medications to prevent it, the vast majority of new cases of the disease in older adults could be prevented by following a modestly healthier lifestyle, according to research led by scientists at the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH). In a study…
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Campus & Community
Family Van helps drive medical assistance for communities in need
In 1989, Nancy Oriol, now the dean for students at Harvard Medical School (HMS), had a vision: to establish a program that could provide basic health services to individuals in Boston who are unable to access primary health care.
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Health
Chylack and Dowling named ARVO Fellows
The Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (ARVO) has named Harvard Professor of Ophthalmology Leo T. Chylack Jr., and Gordon and Llura Gund Professor of Neurosciences John E. Dowling as 2009 fellows. Chylack and Dowling will receive their fellowships in May at the annual ARVO meeting in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. Both have been named…
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Health
Eating fatty fish once a week reduces men’s risk of heart failure
Eating salmon or other fatty fish just once a week helped reduce men’s risk of heart failure, a recent study shows, adding to growing evidence that omega-3 fatty acids are of benefit to cardiac health.
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Health
A more direct delivery of cancer drugs to tumors
An interdisciplinary team of researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) and the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology (HST) has demonstrated a better way to deliver cancer drugs directly to tumors. The researchers used specially engineered nanoparticles that can inhibit a signaling pathway and deliver a higher concentration of medication to the specific…
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Health
HMS professor devises single test for cancers
Imagine visiting a doctor’s office five years from now and, as a routine part of your annual physical, getting an accurate test that can tell whether you have cancer long before you have either symptoms or tumors detectable by other methods. Such a test may be in the offing if early data from both laboratory…
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Health
Universal coverage may narrow gaps in health outcomes
Health care disparities in the United States have long been noted, with particular attention paid to the gaps separating racial and economic groups. And while some research has looked at how insurance — and lack of insurance — contributes to this imbalance, few, if any, studies have quantified the impact of universal coverage on differences…
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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
Breast cancer danger rising in developing world
Women in developing nations, once thought to have a small chance of contracting breast cancer, are increasingly getting the disease as lifestyles incorporate risk factors common in industrialized nations, panelists at the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) said Tuesday (April 14).
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Health
Study links steroid abuse to key biological, psychological characteristics
A study by researchers at Harvard-affiliated McLean Hospital sheds new light on anabolic steroid users, augmenting previous research suggesting that users can become dependent on the drugs and showing for the first time that those who do become dependent tend to share certain biological and psychological characteristics. The findings could help in understanding who is…
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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
Harvard surgeons perform second partial face transplant in U.S.
Surgeons at Harvard-affiliated Brigham and Women’s Hospital toiled for 17 hours in twin operating rooms yesterday performing the second facial transplant surgery operation in the U.S. The complex, challenging operation, conducted on a patient who wishes to remain anonymous, involved replacing the entire mid-face area, including the skin, the muscles and nerves that allow it…
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Campus & Community
Morris Simon
Morris Simon, MB, BCH, died suddenly and unexpectedly on January 17, 2005, one day after his 79th birthday. At the time of his death he was professor emeritus at Harvard Medical School and working regularly in the Department of Radiology at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, as he had for almost a half century.
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Health
Waist size predictor of heart failure in men and women
Adding to the growing evidence that a person’s waist size is an important indicator of heart health, a study led by investigators at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) has found that larger waist circumference is associated with increased risk of heart failure in middle-aged and older populations of men and women.
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Health
Simple bedside test improves diagnosis of chronic back pain
A simple and inexpensive method of assessing pain, developed by Harvard researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), is better than currently used techniques for distinguishing neuropathic pain – pain caused by damage to the nervous system — from other types of chronic back pain. Being able to more precisely determine the underlying nature of the…
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Health
Lighting up Parkinson’s disease research
Most people do not think of jellyfish at the mention of Parkinson’s disease research. But, at the MassGeneral Institute for Neurodegenerative Disease (MIND), researchers Pamela McLean and Bradley Hyman are using the same fluorescent protein that causes the green glow of jellyfish for their experiments testing potential drugs for the treatment of Parkinson’s disease (PD).…
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Health
Modification of mutant Huntington’s protein increases its clearance from brain cells
A new study has identified a potential strategy for removing the abnormal protein that causes Huntington’s disease (HD) from brain cells, which could slow the progression of the devastating neurological disorder. In today’s edition of the journal Cell, a team of Harvard researchers from the MassGeneral Institute for Neurodegenerative Disease (MGH-MIND) describes how an alteration…
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Science & Tech
Countway marks development of ‘the pill’
The birth control pill, which revolutionized contraception and sparked a cultural reassessment of the purpose of sex and the sanctity of life, was developed by a Harvard fertility doctor who believed people should have children early in life — and as many as they could afford. John Rock, a Harvard College and Harvard Medical School…
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Science & Tech
Narayanamurti named director of Science, Technology, and Public Policy Program at Belfer Center
Venkatesh “Venky” Narayanamurti will be the new director of the Science, Technology, and Public Policy Program at Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Belfer Center director Graham Allison announced April 1. “Dean Venky,” as he is widely known, is the John A. and Elizabeth S. Armstrong Professor of Engineering and Applied…
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Health
Infant weight gain linked to childhood obesity
As childhood obesity continues its 30-year advance from occasional curiosity to cultural epidemic, health care providers are struggling to find out why — and the reasons are many. Increasingly sedentary environments for both adults and children, as well as cheap and ubiquitous processed foods no doubt play a role, but researchers are finding more evidence…
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Health
Angiogenesis inhibitor improves brain tumor survival by reducing swelling
The beneficial effects of anti-angiogenesis drugs in the treatment of the deadly brain tumors called glioblastomas appear to result primarily from reduction of edema – the swelling of brain tissue – and not from any direct anti-tumor effect, according to a study from Harvard researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH). Their report, to be published…
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Science & Tech
Five at Harvard named HHMI Early Career Scientists;
Five Harvard scientists are among 50 young scientists nationwide who will have their work supported for the next six years by a new initiative from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI). HHMI today announced that the selected scientists are at 33 institutions across the United States and have led their own laboratories for two to…
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Science & Tech
Policies regarding IRB members’ industry contacts often lacking
At a time of heightened concern about conflicts of interest posed by relationships between academic medical researchers and commercial firms, a new study finds that a significant number of academic institutions do not have clear policies covering the industrial relationships of members of institutional review boards (IRBs), committees charged with ensuring that clinical studies uphold…
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Health
Mechanism directing stem cells to their destination identified;
Harvard Stem Cell Institute (HSCI) researchers have for the first time identified in mice a cellular mechanism that directs stem cells to their ultimate destination in the body. The finding in blood stem cells by HSCI co-director David Scadden and colleagues holds the promise of greatly increasing the efficiency of the bone marrow transplants used…