Featured series 
Tag: Harvard Medical School
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Health
The pine beetle’s tale
Researchers at Harvard Medical School and the University of Wisconsin, Madison, have discovered how beetles and bacteria form a symbiotic and mutualistic relationship — one that ultimately results in the destruction of pine forests. In addition, they’ve identified the specific molecule that drives this whole phenomenon. The findings, published in the Oct. 3 issue of…
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Health
Important new step toward producing stem cells for human treatment
A team of Harvard Stem Cell Institute (HSCI) scientists has taken an important step toward producing induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells that are safe to transplant into patients to treat diseases. Excitement over the ability of researchers to create this form of stem cell by inserting four genes into adults cells has thus far been…
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Science & Tech
Three Harvard faculty members net MacArthur fellowships
Three biologists — one current and two future faculty members at Harvard — have won MacArthur Foundation “genius” grants, $500,000 no-strings-attached awards intended to encourage creativity, originality, and innovation in a broad array of fields. The winners are Assistant Professor of Neurobiology Rachel Wilson at Harvard Medical School, Susan Mango, now at the University of…
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Health
Transfer of hospitalized patient from one resident to another can lead to harm
A significant percentage of resident physicians report that patient handoffs – transfer of responsibility for a hospitalized patient from one resident to another – contributed to incidents in which harm was done to patients. The study, published in the October 2008 Joint Commission Journal on Quality and Patient Safety, identifies situations in which problematic handoffs…
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Health
NIH names Harvard Pioneers, Innovators
Harvard faculty members comprise almost 20 percent of the 47 scientists nationally whose promising and innovative work was today recognized with the announcement of two grant programs through the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The grants, expected to total $138 million over five years for all recipients, recognize established researchers through the Pioneer Award and…
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Science & Tech
David Korn named University’s vice provost for research;
David Korn, a former Dean of Stanford University School of Medicine long known as a leader in research policy and science administration, will become the University’s vice provost for research, Provost Steven E. Hyman today announced. A distinguished pathologist who was at Stanford for more than a decade, Korn has served since 1997 in senior…
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Health
Harvard Medical School, MGH researcher Gary Ruvkun to share 2008 Lasker Award
Gary Ruvkun, a Harvard Medical School genetics professor in the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) Center for Computational and Integrative Biology, is one of three scientists named co-recipients of the 2008 Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research. The Lasker Awards of the Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation are often refered to as the “American Nobel Prize,”…
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Health
Efficiency of producing iPS cells markedly improved
Some of the most challenging obstacles limiting the reprogramming of mature human cells into stem cells may not seem quite as daunting in the near future. Two independent research groups, one lead by Harvard Stem Cell Institute Principal Faculty member Konrad Hochedlinger, and another at the Whitehead Institute, are describing new tools that provide invaluable…
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Health
Advanced blood analysis may speed diagnosis of heart attacks
Someday doctors may be able to use a blood test to confirm within minutes, instead of hours, if a patient is having a heart attack, allowing more rapid treatment that could limit damage to heart muscle. A study led by investigators from Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT reports…
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Harvard Catalyst is up and running
The Harvard Catalyst, an unprecedented pan-University collaborative effort committed to harnessing the human, technological, and fiscal resources of Harvard and its academic healthcare centers (AHCs) to reduce the burden of human illness has launched a feature-rich website that focuses its collaborative efforts. Supported by a five-year, $117.5 million Clinical and Translational Science Award from the…
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Health
Scientists Who Linked HPV with Cervical Cancer Win 20th Annual Alpert Prize
Two scientists who discovered that specific types of human papillomavirus, or HPV, cause cancer of the cervix will receive the 20th annual Warren Alpert Foundation Scientific Prize on Sept. 15. As part of the day’s celebration, the German researchers will give talks at a symposium beginning at 8:30 a.m. in Harvard Medical School’s New Research…
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Science & Tech
NHGRI/NIH awards team $6.5M to advance DNA sequencing using Nanopores
The National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), awarded a $6.5 (over 4 years) grant to a team of Harvard University researchers to further develop electronic sequencing in nanopores. The grant is part of more than $20 million in total funding given by NHGRI/NIH to spur innovative sequencing…
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Health
Broad Institute awarded $86 million NIH grant
Researchers at the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT have been chosen to receive a six-year, $86M grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to identify and develop molecular tools known as “small molecules,” which can probe the proteins, signaling pathways and cellular processes that are crucial to human health and disease. The Broad…
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Science & Tech
Value of direct-to-consumer drug advertising oversold, study finds
Direct-to-consumer advertising may not be giving big pharma such a big bang for their five billion bucks after all. Despite the billions spent on bringing drug marketing campaigns straight into patients’ living rooms, such strategies have a modest effect at best—and in some cases, no effect at all. “People tend to think that if direct-to-consumer…
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Health
Harvard Stem Cell Institute researchers turn one form of adult mouse cell directly into another
In a feat of biological prestidigitation likely to turn the field of regenerative medicine on its head, Harvard Stem Cell Institute (HSCI) co-director Doug Melton and post doctoral fellow Qiao “Joe” Zhou report having achieved what has long been a dream and ultimate goal of developmental biologists – directly turning one type of fully formed…
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Health
Driven:
When the baby vomited again, Gail Melton knew something was seriously wrong with her second child, a son she and her husband, Doug Melton, had named Sam. She phoned Doug and took Sam to Harvard Health Services in Holyoke Center. Doug hurried to the clinic from his Fairchild Biochemistry Building lab on Divinity Avenue, where,…
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Campus & Community
In brief
Harvard-affiliated study runs in Journal of Community Psychology; Docents sought for Semitic Museum; Habitat for Humanity sale begins Aug. 23; HMS to host second ‘Freecycle’ event, donations sought; HMS to host quantitative genomics conference, poster component; Deadline for first print issue
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Campus & Community
Julius B. Richmond, former U.S. surgeon general, 91
Julius B. Richmond, a seminal figure in the history of American public health and pediatrics, and the first national director of the Head Start program, who held professorial positions at three Harvard Schools, died July 27 at his home in Chestnut Hill, Mass. He was 91.
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Health
Potential diabetes treatment selectively kills autoimmune cells from human patients; study confirms feasibility of human trials
In experiments using blood cells from human patients with diabetes and other autoimmune disorders, Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) researchers have confirmed the mechanism behind a potential new therapy for type 1 diabetes. A team led by Denise Faustman, MD, PhD, director of the MGH Immunobiology Laboratory, showed that blocking a metabolic pathway regulating the immune…
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Health
Joslin study identifies protein that produces ‘good’ fat; finding may lead to ways to treat, prevent obesity
A study by researchers at the Joslin Diabetes Center has shown that a protein known for its role in inducing bone growth can also help promote the development of brown fat, a “good” fat that helps in the expenditure of energy and plays a role in fighting obesity. “Obesity is occurring at epidemic rates in…
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Health
Bone marrow stem cells may help control inflammatory bowel disease
Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and Harvard Medical School investigators have found that infusions of a particular bone marrow stem cell appeared to protect gastrointestinal tissue from autoimmune attack in a mouse model.
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Science & Tech
Five faculty members named young innovators by Technology Review
Work on flying robots, surgical tape modeled on gecko feet, energy tips gleaned from plants, new ways to grow stem cells, and dramatically smaller medical imaging equipment has landed five Harvard faculty members on a list of the world’s top 35 young innovators. The annual list is compiled by Technology Review magazine and features what…
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Health
Researchers find sleep selectively preserves emotional memories
As poets, songwriters and authors have described, our memories range from misty water-colored recollections to vividly detailed images of the times of our lives. Now, a study led by Harvard researchers at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) and Boston College offers new insights into the specific components of emotional memories, suggesting that sleep plays…
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Health
A rare glimpse of schizophrenia’s genetic roots
The delusions and hallucinations of schizophrenia can be devastating for the 1% of the population struck by the disease. The condition clearly has a genetic component, evidenced by its tendency to run in families. However, the search for specific genes or chromosomal regions involved has led to few reproducible findings. Results published in Nature by…
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Health
Growth hormone reduces abdominal fat, cardiovascular risk factors in HIV patients on antiviral therapy
Low-dose growth hormone treatment reduced abdominal fat deposits and improved blood pressure and triglyceride levels in a group of patients with HIV lipodystrophy, a condition involving the redistribution of fat and other metabolic changes in patients receiving combination drug therapy for HIV infection. However, growth hormone treatment appeared to increase blood glucose levels, particularly in…
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Health
MGH study shows how amyloid plaques may damage brain cells in Alzheimer’s disease
One of the major unanswered questions surrounding Alzheimer’s disease – whether and how the amyloid plaques found in the brains of patients with the neurodegenerative disorder actually damage neurons – may be closer to an answer.
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Health
GlaxoSmithKline and Harvard Stem Cell Institute announce major collaboration agreement
GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) and the Harvard Stem Cell Institute (HSCI) today announced that they have entered into a five-year, $25 million-plus collaborative agreement to build a unique alliance in stem cell science to hasten the development of treatments and cures for a range of diseases. GSK’s investment, one of the largest by a pharmaceutical company in…
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Health
Middle Eastern families yield intriguing clues to autism
Research involving large Middle Eastern families, sophisticated genetic analysis and groundbreaking neuroscience has implicated a half-dozen new genes in autism. More importantly, it strongly supports the emerging idea that autism stems from disruptions in the brain’s ability to form new connections in response to experience – consistent with autism’s onset during the first year of…