Featured series 
Tag: Health
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Health
MGH receives Gates Foundation grant
The Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) has received a five-year, $20.5 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to expand an international program investigating the biological factors underlying immune system control of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. The grant provides support to the International HIV Controllers Study, which currently involves researchers from more…
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Health
Late treatment with letrozole can reduce cancer recurrence risk
Treatment with the aromatase inhibitor letrozole (Femara) can reduce the risk of breast cancer recurrence even when initiated one to seven years after a course of tamoxifen therapy. The results of a study involving women originally in the placebo arm of an international trial of letrozole will appear in the Journal of Clinical Oncology and…
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Health
Inhaled TB vaccine more effective than traditional shot
A novel aerosol version of the most common tuberculosis (TB) vaccine, administered directly to the lungs as an oral mist, offers significantly better protection against the disease in experimental animals than a comparable dose of the traditional injected vaccine, researchers report this week (March 12) in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).…
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Health
Sobering look at ‘mind-body connection’
Mind-body medicine goes by many names today — including holistic, complementary, or alternative medicine. Regardless of what it’s called, many people embrace the ideas behind the mind-body connection and its effect on health, sometimes despite a lack of supporting scientific evidence. In her recently published book, “The Cure Within: A History of Mind-Body Medicine” (W.W.…
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Health
President 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 major research institutions were in Washington Tuesday (March 11) calling on Congress to repair the “Broken Pipeline” through which breakthroughs in the biomedical sciences should…
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Campus & Community
Not too late to get flu shot
With the flu season often lasting through April, there is still plenty of time and good reason to get immunized if you have not already. Following immunization, it takes approximately 10 days to develop antibodies and be protected.
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Health
HSPH establishes new three-year grant program
The Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) has announced the establishment of the A.G. Leventis Foundation Fellowship Program with a three-year grant to support Cypriot/Greek and Nigerian students and scholars in public health.
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Health
Gene variants probably increase risk for anxiety disorders
Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) researchers — in collaboration with scientists at the University of California, San Diego, and Yale University — have discovered perhaps the strongest evidence yet linking variation in a particular gene with anxiety-related traits. In the March issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, the team describes finding that particular versions of a…
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Campus & Community
Not too late to get flu shot
With the flu season often lasting through April, there is still plenty of time and good reason to get immunized if you have not already. Following immunization, it takes approximately 10 days to develop antibodies and be protected.
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Health
HMS, Broad Institute team works to better understand mitochondria
Why do nearly 1 million people taking cholesterol-lowering statins often experience muscle cramps? Why is it that in the rare case when a diabetic takes medication for intestinal worms, his glucose levels improve? Is there any scientific basis for the purported health effects of green tea?
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Campus & Community
Flu shots still available at HUHS
With the flu season currently at its peak (and the season often lasting through April), there is still plenty of time and good reason to get immunized if you have not already. Following immunization, it takes approximately 10 days to develop antibodies and be protected.
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Health
Research in brief
GROWING U.S. DISPARITIES IN HEALTH NOT INEVITABLE NEW WAY TO GROW BLOOD VESSELS
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Health
University, students unite for mental health
If a student is struggling, stressed-out, or having trouble coping with pressure, the University is here to listen and help. That’s the theme behind this year’s “Speak Out, Mental Health at Harvard,” a weeklong series of events to engage the student body in active campus dialogues about mental health.
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Health
Joint Harvard-Brazil program fights entrenched diseases
Recently (Jan. 6-21), 15 Harvard and 16 Brazilian students participated in an intensive experience: the first Harvard-Brazil Collaborative Course on Infectious Diseases. The course, which was offered by the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) and the Santa Casa de Misericórdia de São Paulo Medical School (FCMSCSP) with the support of the Harvard University Brazil…
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Campus & Community
Flu shots still available at HUHS
With the flu season currently at its peak (and the season often lasting through April), there is still plenty of time and good reason to get immunized if you have not already. Following immunization, it takes approximately 10 days to develop antibodies and be protected.
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Campus & Community
HSPH offers scholarship opportunity
The Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) recently announced a new scholarship opportunity for students and scholars from Southeast and East-Central Europe.
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Arts & Culture
HUL launches extensive ‘Contagion’ collection
The Harvard University Library (HUL) Open Collections Program recently launched http://ocp.hul.harvard.edu/contagion. Created with support from Arcadia, the new collection, titled “Contagion: Historical Views of Diseases and Epidemics,” brings carefully selected historical materials from Harvard’s renowned libraries, special collections, and archives to Internet users everywhere.
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Science & Tech
Impact of global warming on health debated
Disagreement over the public health impact of global warming emerged in a symposium Monday morning (Feb. 18) at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. The colloquium, titled “Sustaining Human Health in a Changing Global Environment,” addressed what hazards can be expected as a result of rapid and continuing climate…
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Campus & Community
Free flu shots still available at University Health Services
With the flu season currently at its peak (and the season often lasting through April), there is still plenty of time and good reason to get immunized if you have not already. Following immunization, it takes approximately 10 days to develop antibodies and be protected.
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Health
Newly identified gene variants associated with prostate cancer risk
Three studies presenting newly identified genetic variants that are associated with increased susceptibility to prostate cancer were published recently (Feb. 10) on the advance online site of Nature Genetics. The 10 gene variants double the number of known variants associated with risk of the disease and are the result of genomewide association studies.
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Health
Anxiety linked to overestimation of breast cancer risks
Elevated levels of anxiety may cause women with ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS), the most common form of noninvasive breast cancer, to overestimate their risk of recurrence or dying from breast cancer, suggests a study led by researchers at Harvard-affiliated Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston.
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Health
Web technology allows health experts from around globe to kibitz
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 Mt. Auburn St. in Cambridge.
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Health
BWH-led tuberculosis research project receives $14M NIH grant
Researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH), the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH), Harvard Medical School (HMS) and Partners In Health (PIH) have received a grant of $14 million over five years from the National Institutes of Health to study multi-drug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) and extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB). The goal of the project is…
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Health
Cancer stem cells can be targeted for destruction
It’s increasingly believed among scientists that nearly every cancer contains small populations of highly dangerous cells — cancer stem cells — that can initiate a cancer, drive its progression, and create endless copies of themselves. On the theory that targeting these cells might be an effective therapeutic strategy, researchers around the world have begun isolating…
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Health
Research in brief
Major differences in protocols used to determine brain death; Harvard researchers achieve stem cell milestone; Consortium links chromosome abnormality to autism disorders; Blocking HIV infection; Oral osteoporosis meds appear to reduce the risk of jaw degradation; Six new genetic variants linked to heart-disease risk factor; Gene variation may elevate risk of liver tumor in some…
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Health
Drug helps certain brain tumor patients live longer
People who receive high doses of the chemotherapy drug methotrexate to treat a certain type of brain tumor appear to live longer than people receiving other treatments, according to research published in the Jan. 29 issue of Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.
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Nation & World
‘A good start’
Late in January, a delegation from Chile visited Harvard to discuss “Un Buen Comienzo” (“A Good Start”), an early childhood education program undertaken in 2006 by the Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE), Harvard Medical School (HMS), and the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies (DRCLAS), with the Chilean Ministries of Education and Health…
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Campus & Community
Robert Dorwart
Robert Dorwart was an academic of the highest rank and a physician committed to understanding and improving the lives of those who could not access quality health care.
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Campus & Community
Flu vaccinations offered
Harvard University Health Services (HUHS) is offering free flu shots to members of the Harvard community.
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Health
Increasing growth hormone release reduces abdominal fat
Treatment with an investigational drug that induces the release of growth hormone significantly improved the symptoms of HIV lipodystrophy, a condition involving redistribution of fat and other metabolic changes in patients receiving combination drug therapy for HIV infection.