Featured series 
Tag: Harvard Medical School
-
Campus & Community
This month in Harvard history
May 25, 1951 — The Medical School attracts some 250 graduates to its first Alumni Day.
-
Campus & Community
Learning while we sleep and dream
Suppose you have a lot of information and you want to put it together so it makes sense. Here’s a suggestion from psychologists at Harvard Medical School — sleep on it.
-
Health
Finding the start of Alzheimer’s disease
Faces are hard to remember. Even harder are the names that go with them. It’s one of the most common problems people face as they get older. In puzzling over why that is, Reisa Sperling and her colleagues at Harvard Medical School have discovered startling things about how memories are made and why people lose…
-
Campus & Community
Obesity protects against breast cancer
Being overweight or obese from adolescence to menopause reduces a woman’s chances of getting breast cancer, researchers at Harvard Medical School have found. The earlier in life that the researchers looked, the stronger the association, leading to the conclusion that a woman’s weight at age 18 is a strong predictor of breast cancer. In this…
-
Campus & Community
HSPH, Broad map malaria genetic diversity
Researchers have created the first map of genetic diversity of the malaria parasite, providing new insights in the fight against a public health scourge that kills one person every 30 seconds.
-
Campus & Community
Doctor fatigue hurting patients
Too many 24-hour shifts worked by hospital interns cause medical mistakes that harm and may even kill patients, according to a new Harvard Medical School study. Doctors in training who fall asleep during surgery or while examining patients make four times more errors that cause deaths than their better-rested colleagues, the research reveals. Young doctors…
-
Campus & Community
Dust from Asia invades North America
On the dustiest days in the western United States, 40 percent of the grime blows in from Asia. And fine particles can travel all the way around the world from Africa’s Sahara Desert. These unwanted visitors show up in a new model of dust imports developed by researchers from Harvard and the National Aeronautics and…
-
Campus & Community
Research finds mutation that causes Noonan syndrome
Scientists have discovered that mutations in a gene known as SOS1 account for many cases of Noonan syndrome (NS), a common childhood genetic disorder that occurs in one in 1,000 to 2,500 live births. NS is characterized by short stature, facial abnormalities, and learning disabilities, as well as heart problems and predisposition to leukemia. Led…
-
Campus & Community
Popular hair-loss drug impedes prostate cancer detection in middle-aged men
Researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) have found that the prostate specific antigen (PSA) cancer screening test is falsely lowered by a factor of two in middle-aged men who have taken Propecia (finasteride), a hair-loss drug used by more than 4 million men worldwide, for one year. These findings were published on Dec. 5,…
-
Campus & Community
Fruit fly bouts show gender-specific styles
Fighting like a girl or fighting like a boy is hardwired into fruit fly neurons, according to a study in the Nov. 19 Nature Neuroscience advance online publication by a research team from Harvard Medical School (HMS) and the Institute of Molecular Pathology in Vienna. The results confirm that a gene known as “fruitless” is…
-
Campus & Community
$1M prize for the discovery of biomarker for ALS
Prize4Life Inc., the nonprofit organization founded by Harvard Business School (HBS) alumni Nathan Boaz and Andrea Marano and student Avi Kremer, announced earlier this month that it will award a $1 million prize for researchers who discover a biomarker for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. A biomarker is a distinctive…
-
Health
Harvard researchers map new form of genetic diversity
A new map of human genetic diversity provides a powerful tool for understanding how each person is unique. Created by researchers at Harvard Medical School, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and other institutions around the world, the map focuses on the number of copies of large segments of DNA present in each individual. Though humans normally…
-
Campus & Community
Sensitivity to pain explained
Stabbing back pain or the aches of arthritis send some people to bed in misery while the same distress seems easily tolerated by others.
-
Campus & Community
Risk of breast cancer may be associated with red meat consumption
Researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) have found that eating more red meat may be associated with a higher risk for hormone receptor–positive breast cancers in premenopausal women. This research is published in the Nov. 13 issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine. “This study suggests that dietary factors may be related to a…
-
Campus & Community
Growth of spinal nerves is improved
Nerves that control the highest level of voluntary movements have been isolated and secrets of their growth revealed for the first time. During development, these nerves extend themselves from the brain to all levels of the spine with the help of a potent growth factor called IGF-1. This factor is well known to scientists. However,…
-
Campus & Community
Cells that work themselves to death
When you’re fighting flu or any other infection, your body mobilizes battalions of cells to defend against the invading viruses or bacteria. But once the invaders have been defeated and you’ve recovered from aches, fever, headaches, and a sore throat, your body has to get rid of the now-unneeded fighting cells. If left alone, they…
-
Campus & Community
Migraine auras and heart disease linked – risks high for women
Marsha T. saw the lights of pain coming. They flashed and zigzagged before her eyes. Her visual field shrank into a tunnel. A registered nurse, she knew what was next. In about 30 minutes, a familiar sharp, pulsating pain ripped through her head. Now 48 years old, she had been suffering from migraine headaches with…
-
Campus & Community
Dietary supplements can cause harmful reactions with prescription medicines
More than one of every five people who take prescription drugs also use dietary supplements, like ginseng and gingko, without telling their doctors. Such combinations may lead to harmful results, such as interfering with the action of prescription medications taken for conditions ranging from insomnia to heart disease, cancer, and arthritis. “Amid increasing numbers of…
-
Health
Scientists identify switch for brain’s natural anti-oxidant defense
Scientists at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute report they have found how the brain turns on a system designed to protect its nerve cells from toxic “free radicals,” a waste product of cell metabolism that has been implicated in some degenerative brain diseases, heart attacks, strokes, cancer, and aging. Potentially, the researchers say, it may be possible…
-
Campus & Community
Body art for the faint of heart
Ever wish you could get rid of that tattoo of barbed wire around your wrist, or the forearm-length dragon you once thought of as so stylish or macho? It’s not easy. You can go through a long, expensive series of laser treatments, and still not get it completely erased. You can have it sanded off,…
-
Campus & Community
U.S. lagging in adoption of electronic health records
With fewer than one in 10 doctors making full use of electronic health records and as few as 5 percent of hospitals using one form of them, the U.S. health care industry is way behind in adopting new systems that can improve patient care and reduce medical mistakes, according to a new report co-authored by…
-
Health
Study shows benefits of eating fish greatly outweigh risks
Many studies have shown the nutritional benefits of eating fish (finfish or shellfish). Fish is high in protein and omega-3 fatty acids. But concerns have been raised in recent years about chemicals found in fish from environmental pollution, including mercury, PCBs and dioxins. That has led to confusion among the public – do the risks…
-
Campus & Community
Important signal uncovered in brain development
Nobody has counted them, but the best estimates put the number of human brain cells in the trillions. The best known among them, called neurons, do the heavy thinking and remembering. Each of these cells can connect to 10 or more others, forming a vast network of feelings, thoughts, memories, prejudices, and PINS. But neurons…
-
Campus & Community
Genetic ‘road map’ leads to discoveries
A research team led by scientists at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard announced Sept. 28 the development of a new kind of genetic “road map” that can connect human diseases with potential drugs to treat them, as well as predict how new drugs work in human cells. Called the “connectivity map,” the new…
-
Health
Prostate cancer treatment increases risk of diabetes, heart disease
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, 2006, Journal of Clinical Oncology. “Men with prostate cancer have high five-year survival rates, but they also have higher rates of non-cancer mortality than healthy men,” says study…
-
Campus & Community
The longer you live, the longer you can expect to live
f you were born in the United States and celebrate your 65th birthday this year, you can expect to be around for your 81st birthday if you are male, and for your 84th if you are female. Life expectancy in this country has been rising steeply since 1990, and the National Center for Heath Statistics…
-
Campus & Community
Muscle cells grown into working heart cells
Muscle cells have been used successfully to restore life-sustaining rhythms to ailing hearts, a first step toward developing natural pacemakers. Placed in a tiny raft of collagen implanted into the hearts of rats, these cells survived for the entire lifespan of the animals. “Our experiments provide proof that engineered tissue can function as an electric…
-
Campus & Community
Researchers discover mechanism that regulates bone growth
Harvard researchers have identified a protein that helps regulate bone growth and may lead to new drug targets to fight osteoporosis, the bone loss condition that the National Institutes of Health terms “a major public health threat” to more than half of people age 50 or older. The research, conducted by scientists at the Harvard…
-
Campus & Community
Exercise boosts health of HIV-infected women
Betsy Lincoln felt pregnant all the time. Loss of muscle tone in her face, arms, and legs made her look so bad, she didn’t want to leave her apartment. She had little strength or endurance. Lifting one of her children or climbing a flight of stairs exhausted her. Lincoln (not her real name) is representative…