Featured series 
Tag: Harvard Medical School
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Health
Wine molecule slows aging process
Called resveratrol, a wonder substance discovered by Harvard researchers seems to work in the same way as does drastic calorie cutting. Dramatic reduction of calories has been shown to increase the life span of mice, rats, and monkeys. Such diets are being tried in humans but results are not yet in. Severe dieting also cuts…
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Science & Tech
Researchers make new compounds from protein
Over the years, scientists have repeatedly sought to use a cell’s protein-making process to create new drugs and other compounds. They have had some dramatic successes, such as inducing bacteria to produce human insulin by splicing human insulin-producing genes into the bacteria’s DNA. They have been limited, however, to creating only natural substances like insulin…
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Health
Death and survival proteins work together
At a cellular level, life-sustaining activities such as glucose metabolism were thought to be carried out by entirely different proteins from those involved in apoptosis, or cell death. “People in the field always thought glucose metabolism and apoptosis were two independent pathways for the cell,” said Nika Danial, Harvard Medical School research fellow in pathology…
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Health
Discovery of inner ear cells may lead to new therapies
A research team led by Stefan Heller, a principal investigator at the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary’s Eaton-Peabody Laboratory and assistant professor at the Department of Otology and Laryngology at Harvard Medical School, has discovered a new population of stem cells that reside in the inner ear of adult mice. Huawei Li, a postdoctoral associate…
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Health
Early molecule fingered as an Alzheimer’s cause
“The way we look at it, Alzheimer’s disease is really cancer of the brain,” says Rachael Neve, Harvard Medical School associate professor of psychiatry at McLean Hospital. “But neurons cannot divide and form tumors so they undergo apoptosis (cell death) instead.” Neve; Donna McPhie, Harvard Medical School instructor in psychiatry; and their colleagues show in…
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Health
Identifying which tumors will spread
Researchers at Harvard Medical School have identified a pattern of gene activity that seems to predict whether cancer will return after it is first treated. The ominous pattern shows up in many common types of cancer, including lung, breast, prostate, and brain. What’s more, it may be detectable before the malignancy starts to spread. It’s…
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Health
Study shows U.S. health care paperwork cost $294.3 billion in 1999
Researchers at Harvard Medical School and the Canadian Institute for Health Information, Canada’s quasi-official health statistics agency, analyzed the administrative costs of health insurers, employers’ health benefit programs, hospitals, nursing homes, home care agencies, physicians and other practitioners in the U.S. and Canada. They used data from regulatory agencies and surveys of doctors, and analyzed…
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Health
Study finds neural stem cells are not rejected when transplanted
Most transplanted tissues are seen by the recipient as foreign and are attacked by the immune system, but certain parts of the body do not mount attacks against foreign tissue because doing so would be self-destructive. Michael Young, Ph.D., lead author of the study and an assistant scientist at Schepens Eye Research Institute and assistant…
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Health
Imaging technique tracks tumor escape into lymph nodes
For doctors as well as patients, detecting metastases can be a notoriously burdensome affair. Often, the only way to see whether a patient’s lymph nodes are invaded by cancer cells is to surgically remove and inspect them. In some cases, such as gastric cancer, this can mean several hours of sorting through the nodes in…
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Science & Tech
Millions of Americans suffer from major depression
A Harvard Medical School study found high rates of depression throughout the U.S. population. The researchers analyzed the depression of over 9,000 Americans and evaluated depression’s effect on daily activities and treatment received, if any. Critics have theorized that depression has been reported as more widespread than it really is, said survey leader Ronald Kessler,…
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Campus & Community
Childhood abuse hurts the brain
A thick cable of nerve cells connecting the right and left sides of the brain (corpus callosum) is smaller than normal in abused children, says Martin Teicher, associate professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. He and his colleagues at McLean Hospital, a psychiatric facility affiliated with Harvard, compared brain scans from 51 patients and…
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Science & Tech
Lung imaging method allows visualization of airways
A new dynamic imaging technique described by Mitchell Albert, Harvard Medical School assistant professor of radiology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital; Angela Tooker, MIT graduate student; Kwan Soo Hong, Harvard Medical School research fellow in radiology at BWH; and colleagues in the May 2003 Radiology promises to open new venues in research on lung diseases…
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Campus & Community
New cancer drug wins FDA approval
When he was a first-year student at Harvard Medical School, Alfred Goldberg, now a professor of cell biology, wondered why the body destroys its own proteins, which are so vital to life. He wanted to know why muscles lose much of their mass with inactivity, nerve injury, or cancer. To get an answer, he started…
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Health
Eating less and living longer
Tantalizing evidence exists that cutting calories by 20 percent helps monkeys, who are close relatives, to live longer, healthier lives. And, in one nonscientific program, adults are reducing their caloric intake by as much as 30 percent in the hope of living healthfully (if not too happily) for 100 years or more. What if scientists…
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Health
Hypnosis helps healing
“Hypnosis has been used in Western medicine for more than 150 years to treat everything from anxiety to pain, from easing the nausea of cancer chemotherapy to enhancing sports performance,” says researcher Carol Ginandes of Harvard Medical School. A list of applications she provides includes treatment of phobias, panic, low self-esteem, insomnia, sexual dysfunction, stress,…
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Health
Leptin serves body as energy signal
Much leptin research in humans has focused on feasting rather than famine, but Christos Mantzoros’s team, led by Jean Chan, a Harvard Medical School clinical fellow in medicine, took a different approach. Mantzoros, lead author and HMS assistant professor of medicine at BIDMC, and his group studied eight healthy men to see how the changes…
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Health
New ways found to fight anthrax
John Collier, Presley Professor of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics at Harvard Medical School, began tinkering with anthrax molecules in 1989. He looked into a powerful electron microscope and, for the first time, saw a natural syringe made by an anthrax molecule. Seven individual proteins assemble themselves into a minute syringe that pierces human cells and…
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Science & Tech
In simulation, bioterrorist warning system passes test
Working within a bioterrorism scenario, an early warning system to detect attacks fulfilled its mission. Those who conducted the test say that, had it been real, millions of lives would have been saved. “We estimate that smallpox cases could have been reduced by as much as six or seven orders of magnitude, from 10 million…
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Health
Generous portions of TV make women fat
The first study to compare the effects of inactivity on obesity and diabetes concludes that being a couch potato significantly raises the risk of both diseases. “Our data provide strong evidence that sedentary behaviors, especially prolonged TV watching, are directly related to the risk of obesity and type 2 diabetes,” reports Frank Hu, leader of…
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Science & Tech
Area universities enhance regional economy
Harvard and seven other Greater Boston research universities took center stage in their role as the area’s special economic advantage: magnets for talent and investment that infuse more than $7 billion into the regional economy each year. At a Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce breakfast, leaders from the universities, including President Lawrence H. Summers, President…
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Health
Study sheds light on how the sun causes skin cancer
Scientists have discovered that the sun’s damaging ultraviolet (UV) rays target a series of biochemical signals inside the young skin cell, impairing the cell’s ability to control its proliferation. Lynda Chin and her colleagues found that they could increase both the number of tumors and the speed with which they formed by exposing newborn mice…
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Health
Minimally invasive treatment successfully destroys kidney tumors
A research team from Massachusetts General Hospital has described how a technique called radiofrequency ablation (RFA) destroyed all renal cell carcinoma (RCC) tumors less than 3 cm in size and some larger tumors, depending on their location. The most common form of kidney cancer, RCC will be diagnosed in almost 32,000 Americans this year and…
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Health
CRP shown to predict heart disease among patients with metabolic syndrome
It is estimated that over 50 million people in the United States have at least three of the five medical problems that result in a diagnosis of metabolic syndrome. In a study at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH), 14,719 female participants were followed for eight years. Among those followed, 3,597 women were diagnosed with metabolic…
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Health
Researchers find that sleep deprivation or excess in women may be associated with increased risk of coronary artery disease
Chronic sleep deprivation is common in today’s society. It is reported that a third of Americans sleep six or less hours per day. Previous research has shown that the effects of short-term reduced sleep duration include increased blood pressure, heart rate variability, decreased glucose tolerance and increased cortisol levels. Yet, little is known about how…
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Health
Animal study demonstrates carbon monoxide may help heart patients
Restenosis — reclogging of the heart’s arteries — is a vexing problem for patients who have undergone balloon angioplasty for the treatment of coronary heart disease. The condition apparently develops as a result of the angioplasty itself, in which a balloon is inserted inside the artery in order to widen the clogged vessel. If, during…
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Health
Combination therapy shows promise for delaying progression of Lou Gehrig’s disease
In a study, researchers reported that the combination of minocycline and creatine resulted in additive neuroprotection in the case of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease. After treatment with combination therapy, survival for mice with ALS was extended by 25 percent — or an additional 35 days — when compared to baseline.…
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Health
Study identifies risk factors for retained objects after surgery
A study found that errors involving leaving surgical sponges or instruments inside patients are more likely to happen during emergency procedures, or in operations where there is a sudden change in plan. Additionally the research revealed that the higher a patient’s weight, the more statistically likely it is that an object will be inadvertently left…
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Health
Scientists identify hundreds of worm genes that regulate fat storage
Findings by Harvard researchers, published in the Jan. 16, 2003 issue of Nature, represent the first survey of an entire genome for all genes that regulate fat storage. The research team led by Gary Ruvkun, of the Massachusetts General Hospital Department of Molecular Biology, and postdoctoral fellow Kaveh Ashrafi identified about 400 genes encompassing a…
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Health
Kidney disease genes tied to flow sensing
Polycystic kidney disease, or PKD, is the most common life-threatening genetic disease. It is caused by mutations in one of two genes. Though the genetic defect that causes PKD is known, how it leads kidneys to enlarge and choke with fluid-filled cysts has been frustratingly elusive. A new line of evidence points to a cellular…