Featured series 
Tag: Harvard Medical School
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Health
Blood vessel drugs halt cancer growth
After decades of surviving peer rejection of his theory of cancer treatment by blocking tiny blood vessels, Judah Folkman has gone on to develop drugs that did what he predicted…
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Health
Women’s health study: Long-awaited findings of low-dose aspirin and vitamin E in preventing disease
The WHS trial was led by BWH researchers Nancy Cook, Sc.D., and Julie Buring, Sc.D. Its results are published in the July 6, 2005 Journal of the American Medical Association.…
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Health
Child early intervention programs make for healthier adults
The Brookline Early Education Program (BEEP), a community- based child health and development program, was initiated by the Brookline Public Schools and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and ran from…
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Health
DNA-scanning technology finds possible sites of cancer genes in chromosomes of lung cancer cell
In a study in the July 1, 2005 issue of the journal Cancer Research, the researchers used single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) array technology to identify regions of chromosomes where genes…
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Campus & Community
A new way to identify cancers is found
Scientists are surprised and delighted that a recently discovered group of small molecules show an unexpected potential for easily distinguishing healthy cells from tumors and one type of cancer from…
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Campus & Community
Half of us suffer from mental illness, survey finds
About half of all the people in the United States will develop one or more mental disorders in their lifetimes, according to the latest national survey. During any year, one…
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Health
Disease mutation tracked down, ending ‘curse’ for Colombian families
Three years later, Joseph Arboleda-Velasquez, an HMS graduate student who led the scientific team that identified the mutations, and his collaborators have worked out an early step in the events…
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Health
Gene clue to brain asymmetry revealed on right side
Although many assumed that the asymmetry-producing genes, when found, would be more highly expressed on the left side of the brain than the right, Sun Tao, Christopher A. Walsh, and…
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Health
Fetal-cell transplants reverse Parkinson’s in two patients
The two patients were part of a small exploratory study in Halifax. In the study, the cells were bathed in the trophic factor GDNF before being implanted into the striatum,…
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Campus & Community
Suicides are down, researchers say
The suicide rate among men and women ages 18 to 54 years fell 6 percent since 1990. In 1990-92, the rate was approximately 15 out of every 100,000 adults. It…
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Health
CT significantly reduces the need for appendectomy
For the study, the researchers analyzed 663 patients who were examined on CT for suspected appendicitis. An appendectomy was performed on 268 of the CT-screened patients. Of these 268 patients,…
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Science & Tech
Witnessing gun violence significantly increases the likelihood that a child will also commit violent crimes
“Based on this study’s results, showing the importance of personal contact with violence, the best model for violence may be that of a socially infectious disease,” says Felton Earls, MD,…
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Health
‘Brown fat’ cells hold clues for possible obesity treatments
In laboratory studies of mouse cells, the research team identified genes that govern how precursor cells give rise to mature brown fat cells. There are two main types of fat…
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Campus & Community
New delivery technology paves way for disease therapies
A new way to administer therapeutic RNA molecules that efficiently guides them to cells throughout the body is being reported by researchers at the Harvard-affiliated CBR Institute for Biomedical Research…
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Health
Imaging may not be major driver of hospital cost increases
“There have been several news stories and reports from insurers claiming that imaging costs are catching and even surpassing drug costs as major drivers of health care inflation,” says Scott…
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Health
Magnetic stimulation may improve stroke recovery
Repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation treatment improved motor function in a small group of people. For the stimulation, an insulated wire coil is placed on the scalp, and an electrical current…
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Health
TB gene identified
As many as one out of three people in the world are infected with the bacteria that causes tuberculosis, public health experts estimate. That could lead to a global plague…
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Health
Broken hearts may mend after all
Although adult muscle cells become inflexible after differentiation, these cells temporarily loosen the structure to divide in fetal development. Mark T. Keating found that in some lower vertebrates, heart tissue…
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Health
Breathing restored after severe spinal-cord injury
Keeping an animal functioning after a cervical spinal cord injury is nearly impossible. An American researcher developed the lower spinal cord rat model in the early 1900s. He found that…
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Health
Insulin prods development of type 1 diabetes
Joslin Diabetes Center researchers Diane Mathis’s and Christophe Benoist’s finding that the lymph node draining the pancreas was intrinsic to the autoimmune response in mice made David Hafler, HMS professor…
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Campus & Community
Kudzu cuts alcohol consumption
Scott Lukas, professor of psychiatry at McLean, a psychiatric hospital affiliated with Harvard Medical School, says these results inspired his team to test on humans. The study was conducted on…
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Campus & Community
HMS examines ethics of Internet organ donation
Desperation and frustration are prompting some patients with failing organs to turn to modern technology and the Internet to bypass lengthy organ donation waiting lists and find donors themselves. The…
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Campus & Community
Social determinants key in who gets good care
Kerala is one of the poorer states in India, and yet it enjoys India’s highest life expectancy and lowest infant mortality rates. This seeming anomaly has caused many to wonder…
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Health
Aspirin use may protect against colon cancer recurrence, reduce risk of death
“Our data are intriguing because they showed that aspirin use notably reduced the risk of recurrence in patients with advanced colon cancer, but more research is needed before any treatment…
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Health
Drug combination boosts survival rate in head and neck cancers
Previous studies have shown that using combination chemotherapy of cisplatin and 5-fu yields a 25 to 50 percent rate of complete pathological responses (the tumor disappeared). Robert Haddad, M.D., and…
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Health
Left- or right-brain? Genes may tell the story
According to HHMI investigator Christopher A. Walsh, postdoctoral fellow Tao Sun, and their colleagues at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School, their discovery that a gene called…
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Campus & Community
Breathing easier after spinal cord injuries
njuries to the upper spinal cord can take a victim’s breath away. Most people don’t know that breathing difficulties are the leading cause of disease and death after such injuries.…
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Campus & Community
Low-fat dairy may help reduce risk of type 2 diabetes
The consumption of low-fat dairy foods may reduce men’s risk of developing type 2 diabetes, according to a study in the May 9 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine. The…
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Campus & Community
Researchers ID antigen for type 1 diabetes
Type 1 diabetes, diagnosed in children and adults, is an autoimmune disease that occurs when the pancreas no longer produces insulin. Diabetes, which ranks as the fifth-deadliest disease in the…
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Health
Brain chemical serotonin involved in early embryo patterning
A study published in the May 10, 2005, Current Biology has ramifications for neuroscience, developmental genetics, evolutionary biology and, possibly, human teratology (a branch of pathology and embryology concerned with…