Featured series 
Tag: Harvard Medical School
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Health
Stem cells open window on disease processes
A panel of Harvard Stem Cell Institute experts said recently that stem cell research’s biggest impact on patients’ health likely won’t come from therapies that inject stem cells or implant…
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Health
Initial human trial of Type 1 diabetes treatment begun
Scientists at the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) have initiated a phase 1 clinical trial to reverse type 1 diabetes. The trial is exploring whether the promising results from the laboratory…
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Science & Tech
President Faust testifies for increase in NIH funding
With the careers of a generation of young researchers threatened by five years of flat National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding, Harvard President Drew Faust and leaders of six other…
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Science & Tech
“…An important experiment for Harvard.”
When the Harvard University Science and Engineering Committee (HUSEC) gathered for its first meeting late last April, it was charged by not one, but two Harvard Presidents. Then President-designate and…
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Science & Tech
J. Craig Venter named visiting scholar
J. Craig Venter, the visionary biologist and intellectual entrepreneur who was a leading figure in the decoding of the human genome, will join Harvard University as a visiting scholar at…
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Health
Restricting insulin doses increases mortality risk
A new study led by researchers at the Joslin Diabetes Center has found that women with type 1 diabetes who reported taking less insulin than prescribed had a three-fold increased…
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Health
New strategy identified for improving effectiveness of cancer therapies
Manipulating levels of nitric oxide, a gas involved in many biological processes, may improve the disorganized network of blood vessels supplying tumors, potentially improving the effectiveness of radiation and chemotherapy. …
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Health
Medical basics still needed in Developing World
Despite all the progress and promise of modern medicine, most of the world is still struggling to get the fundamentals of medical care: simple diagnostic tests, affordable medicines, and efficient…
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Science & Tech
Are building environmental and health disasters result of climate change?
Disagreement over the public health impact of global warming emerged in a symposium this morning at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. The colloquium,…
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Science & Tech
The ethics of the organ bazaar
In nearly every country in the world, there is a shortage of kidneys for transplantation. In the United States, around 73,000 people are on waiting lists to receive a kidney.…
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Health
Drug based on MGH discovery may significantly improve treatment of dangerous blood disorder
Two clinical trials of the novel drug romiplostim (Nplate) show that it significantly improved platelet levels in patients with chronic immune thrombocytopenic purpura (ITP), a hematologic disorder that can cause uncontrolled…
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Health
Grapefruit compound may help combat hepatitis C infection
A compound that naturally occurs in grapefruit and other citrus fruits may be able to block the secretion of hepatitis C virus (HCV) from infected cells, a process required to…
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Health
Stem cell lines created from discarded IVF embryos
Human embryos that are discarded every day as medical waste from in vitro fertilization (IVF) clinics could be an important source of stem cells for research, according to a team…
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Health
Cancer drug activates adult stem cells
The use of a drug used in cancer treatment activates stem cells that differentiate into bone appears to cause regeneration of bone tissue and be may be a potential treatment…
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Health
HOPE in African HIV/AIDS fight
It was close to midnight one day this week in Durban, South Africa, when Harvard AIDS researcher Bruce D. Walker switched on his computer and made a visit to 104…
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Science & Tech
Scientists may have identified new target for HIV vaccine
By coaxing the HIV-1 protein to reveal a hidden portion of its protein coat, scientists at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School have provided a newly detailed picture of…
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Health
M. Judah Folkman, biomedical pioneer, dies at 74
One of Harvard Medical School’s (HMS) most forward-looking and innovative physician-scientists, M. Judah Folkman, died suddenly Monday (Jan. 14) after suffering a heart attack at the Denver International Airport in…
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Health
Peter Black named President-Elect of World Federation of Neurosurgical Societies
Peter Black, MD, PhD, Franc D. Ingraham Professor of Neurosurgery at Harvard Medical School and founding chair of the Brigham and Women’s Hospital Department of Neurosurgery has been elected President-Elect…
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Health
Chromosomal abnormality linked to autism disorders
Researchers have fitted another piece into the complex genetic puzzle that is autism, finding DNA deletions and duplications on a specific chromosome that they say explains one to two percent…
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Health
Those least needy most likely to get free drug samples
Most free drug samples are not used to ease the burden of the poor or the uninsured, but rather go to those most able to pay for their prescriptions, according…
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Health
Gene variation may elevate risk of liver tumor in patients with cirrhosis
A genetic variation appears to significantly increase the risk that individuals with cirrhosis of the liver will develop hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), a liver tumor that is the third leading cause…
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Science & Tech
Turning on cells with magnetic switches
Harvard scientists have figured out how to turn cells on and off using magnets, an advance with potentially broad applications as researchers around the world work to find new ways…
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Health
Harvard researchers achieve stem cell milestone
Harvard Stem Cell Institute researchers have successfully turned back the clock on human skin cells, causing them to revert to an embryonic stem cell-like state from which they can become…
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Health
Microchip-based device can detect rare tumor cells in bloodstream
A team of investigators from the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) BioMicroElectroMechanical Systems (BioMEMS) Resource Center and the MGH Cancer Center has developed a microchip-based device that can isolate, enumerate and…
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Science & Tech
Discovery of a key molecular switch regulating cancer stem cells
The role of stem cells in tumor development has, unexpectedly, been one of the biggest stories in cancer research over the past few years. These aren’t embryonic stem cells, but…
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Health
Researchers discover second light-sensing system in human eye
New research on blind subjects has bolstered evidence that the human eye has two separate light-sensing systems — one that perceives the familiar visual signals that allow us to see…
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Health
Transitivity, the orbitofrontal cortex, and neuroeconomics
You study the menu at a restaurant and decide to order the steak rather than the salmon. But when the waiter tells you about the lobster special, you decide lobster…
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Health
Slow reading in dyslexia tied to disorganized brain tracts
Dyslexia marked by poor reading fluency — slow and choppy reading — may be caused by disorganized, meandering tracts of nerve fibers in the brain, according to researchers at Children’s…
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Health
Blood stem cells fight invaders
No other stem cell is more thoroughly understood than the blood, or hematopoietic, stem cell. These occasional and rare cells, scattered sparingly throughout the marrow and capable of replenishing an…