Featured series 
Tag: Harvard Medical School
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Health
Discovery could aid fight against cystic fibrosis infection
Harvard Medical School researchers have discovered one way that a hardy disease-causing bacteria could be surviving in the lungs of chronically infected cystic fibrosis patients. “This work is important because…
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Health
Harvard Stem Cell Institute researchers granted approval
After more than two years of intensive ethical and scientific review, Harvard Stem Cell Institute (HSCI) researchers at Harvard and Children’s Hospital Boston have been cleared to begin experiments using…
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Campus & Community
Sunshine may help prevent breast cancer
Evidence is piling up that boosting vitamin D intake may help prevent breast cancer. One major study of 1,760 women found that the higher the levels of vitamin D in…
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Campus & Community
Study: Hope alive for AIDS vaccine
Researchers from the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School (HMS) have prompted human immune cells to attack HIV protein fragments, showing that the long-sought vaccine to protect against AIDS…
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Health
New data finds defibrillator recalls to be common
Data presented May 19, 2006 at the Heart Rhythm Society’s 27th Annual Scientific Sessions finds that during a 10-year study period more than one in five automatic external defibrillators (AEDs)…
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Health
Schepens scientists first to discover angiogenesis switch inside blood vessel cells
Scientists at Schepens Eye Research Institute, an affiliate of Harvard Medical School, are the first to discover a switch inside blood vessel cells that controls angiogenesis (new blood vessel growth).…
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Health
Study offers new hope for preventive vaccine for AIDS
New research by Dana-Farber Cancer Institute scientists suggests that it may one day be possible to immunize healthy individuals against HIV-1, the virus that causes AIDS. In a study published…
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Campus & Community
Did ancestral humans, chimps interbreed?
New scientific findings indicate that ancestral humans split from chimpanzee forebears more recently than previously thought and raise the possibility that the two nascent species hybridized before making their final separation.
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Campus & Community
HMS researchers isolate nerve growth compound
Researchers at Harvard Medical School and Children’s Hospital Boston have isolated a molecule that stimulates the regrowth of damaged adult nerve fibers, providing new hope for those suffering from nerve…
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Health
Study shows different insulin signaling components control glucose and lipid metabolism in the liver
Insulin uses two distinct mechanisms to control glucose and the metabolism of blood fats (lipids) in the liver, a new Joslin Diabetes Center-led study has discovered. Failures in each of…
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Health
New combination of treatments is effective for alcohol dependence
McLean Hospital researchers, along with colleagues from 11 other study sites nationwide, report that the medication naltrexone and up to 20 sessions of alcohol counseling delivered by a behavioral specialist…
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Health
Potential Alzheimer’s vaccine improves learning and memory deficits in mice
Researchers have found that a vaccine for Alzheimer’s disease improves learning and memory deficits in mice. “Our findings show promise for a potentially safer and more effective Alzheimer’s vaccine in…
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Health
Melatonin most effective for sleep when taken for off-hour sleeping
Researchers from the Divisions of Sleep Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School have found in a double-blind placebo-controlled clinical study that melatonin, taken orally during non-typical…
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Health
Researchers learn more about ways to regenerate the ear’s hearing cells
Massachusetts General Hospital researchers have made important progress in their ongoing effort to regenerate the inner ear’s hair cells, which convert sound vibrations to nerve impulses. In the Proceedings of…
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Campus & Community
Mad cow protein found to have a sane side
It’s a devastating disease, changing behavior, causing uncontrolled movements, blindness, coma, and, finally, death. And we all have the makings of it in our heads. When it topples cows, it’s…
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Health
Bone-marrow-derived stem cells can reverse genetic kidney disease
The discovery that bone-marrow derived stem cells can regenerate damaged renal cells in an animal model of Alport syndrome provides a potential new strategy for managing this inherited kidney disease…
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Health
Attention shoppers: Researchers find neurons that encode the value of different goods
Researchers at Harvard Medical School report in the April 23, 2006 issue of Nature that they have identified neurons that encode the values that subjects assign to different items. The…
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Health
Sense of security may be false with tried and true anti-inflammatories
For all the tender joints and headaches they relieve and colon cancer they may prevent, the older nonsteroidal anti- inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) raise another serious health risk. The highly publicized…
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Science & Tech
Discovery of calcium channel protein illuminates T cell signaling
A rare genetic defect in a family has helped researchers identify a key signaling component in T cells. The newly identified protein, Orai1, may be a piece of a long-…
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Health
Advances in chemotherapy improve outcomes in select breast cancers
Recent advances in chemotherapy have significantly reduced the risk of disease recurrence and death in breast cancer patients whose tumors are not hormone sensitive, according to a study by researchers…
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Health
Prayers don’t help heart surgery patients
Many – if not most people – believe that prayer will help you through a medical crisis such as heart bypass surgery. If a large group of people outside yourself,…
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Science & Tech
Researchers create pigs that produce omega-3 fatty acids
Researchers report they have created pigs that produce omega -3 fatty acids, which are known to improve heart function and help reduce the risks for heart disease, representing the first…
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Science & Tech
Child enrichment program still pays off after 15 years
Researchers have detected the lasting benefits of early childhood education 15 years after the program ended. What may have seemed like three years of fun and games at the time…
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Campus & Community
Exercise cuts risk of sudden cardiac death
Exercise improves your health, but can you kill yourself with too much snow shoveling, yard work, jogging, or playing tennis? “Despite all of the known benefits of exercise, there are…
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Health
Getting ACL tears to heal themselves
Orthopedic surgeon Martha Murray reports that a collagen gel enriched with blood platelets can stimulate natural healing of a partial anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) tear. Murray and colleagues at Harvard-affiliated…
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Health
Enzyme key in preventing Alzheimer’s onset
A new discovery has found that Pin1, an enzyme previously shown to prevent the formation of the tangle-like lesions found in the brains of Alzheimer’s disease patients, also plays a…