Featured series 
Tag: Massachusetts General Hospital
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Health
Predicting risk of stroke from one’s genetic blueprint
A new statistical model could be used to predict an individual’s lifetime risk of stroke, according to the results of a study by Harvard researchers at the Children’s Hospital Boston Informatics Program.
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Health
Common gene variants increase risk of hypertension
A new study has identified the first common gene variants associated with an increased incidence of hypertension — a significant risk factor for heart attack, stroke, and kidney failure. The report, receiving early online release in the journal Nature Genetics, identifies variants in genes for proteins involved with cardiovascular response to stress that also appear…
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Health
International study identifies gene variants associated with early heart attack
The largest study ever completed of genetic factors associated with heart attacks has identified nine genetic regions — three not previously described — that appear to increase the risk for early-onset myocardial infarction. The report from the Myocardial Infarction Genetics Consortium, based on information from a total of 26,000 individuals in 10 countries, was given…
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Science & Tech
Researchers find new molecule to block ‘Hedgehog’ signaling in cancer, development
Researchers have achieved a feat drug developers had thought difficult, if not impossible, discovering a compound that blocks the functioning of a key developmental protein by binding to an “undruggable” target — an advance that may provide a new avenue to fight skin, pancreatic, prostate, and other cancers. A team led by Stuart Schreiber, the…
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Health
Stem cell researcher honored by President George W. Bush
Harvard Stem Cell Institute (HSCI) scientist Kevin Eggan today was cited by President George W. Bush for his work in advancing the field of stem cell science on both scientific and educational levels. Eggan received a Presidential Early Career Award for Science and Engineering (PECASE) “… for developing new approaches for reprogramming of patient cells…
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Health
New label-free method tracks molecules and drugs in live cells
A new type of highly sensitive microscopy developed by Harvard researchers could greatly expand the limits of modern biomedical imaging, allowing scientists to track the location of minuscule metabolites and drugs in living cells and tissues without the use of any kind of fluorescent labeling. The technique, based on stimulated Raman scattering (SRS), works by…
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Health
Supply of board-certified emergency physicians unlikely to meet projected needs
The number of physicians with board certification in emergency medicine is unlikely to meet the staffing needs of U.S. emergency departments in the foreseeable future, if ever. In the December issue of Academic Emergency Medicine, the investigators report finding that staffing every emergency department with board-certified emergency physicians does not appear to be feasible, given…
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Health
Common surgical anesthetic induces Alzheimer’s-associated changes in mouse brains
For the first time researchers have shown that a commonly used anesthetic can produce changes associated with Alzheimer’s disease in the brains of living mammals, confirming previous laboratory studies. In their Annals of Neurology report, which has received early online release, a team of Harvard researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) shows how administration of…
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Health
Microbiologist Gary Ruvkun:
Gary Ruvkun has made a career out of imagining the unimaginable, and of surrounding himself with like-minded thinkers who let the wheels of thought spin until they catch on something hard, gain traction, and take off. In the early 1990s, the thoughts of Ruvkun and colleague Victor Ambros caught on the idea of microRNA, tiny…
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Health
Survey finds disconnect between sexual problems in women and feeling of distress
The largest such study ever published finds that, although about 40 percent of women surveyed report having sexual problems, only 12 percent indicate that those issues are a source of significant personal distress. The report, led by a Harvard Medical School(HMS) physician at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), appears in the current issue of Obstetrics &…
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Health
Gene scan of Alzheimer’s families identifies four new suspect genes
The first family-based genome-wide association study in Alzheimer’s disease has identified the sites of four novel genes that may significantly influence risk for the most common late-onset form of the devastating neurological disorder. In their report in the Nov. 7 American Journal of Human Genetics, first released online, a team led by Harvard researchers from…
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Health
Important new step toward producing stem cells for human treatment
A team of Harvard Stem Cell Institute (HSCI) scientists has taken an important step toward producing induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells that are safe to transplant into patients to treat diseases. Excitement over the ability of researchers to create this form of stem cell by inserting four genes into adults cells has thus far been…
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Health
Transfer of hospitalized patient from one resident to another can lead to harm
A significant percentage of resident physicians report that patient handoffs – transfer of responsibility for a hospitalized patient from one resident to another – contributed to incidents in which harm was done to patients. The study, published in the October 2008 Joint Commission Journal on Quality and Patient Safety, identifies situations in which problematic handoffs…
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Health
NIH names Harvard Pioneers, Innovators
Harvard faculty members comprise almost 20 percent of the 47 scientists nationally whose promising and innovative work was today recognized with the announcement of two grant programs through the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The grants, expected to total $138 million over five years for all recipients, recognize established researchers through the Pioneer Award and…
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Science & Tech
David Korn named University’s vice provost for research;
David Korn, a former Dean of Stanford University School of Medicine long known as a leader in research policy and science administration, will become the University’s vice provost for research, Provost Steven E. Hyman today announced. A distinguished pathologist who was at Stanford for more than a decade, Korn has served since 1997 in senior…
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Health
Harvard Medical School, MGH researcher Gary Ruvkun to share 2008 Lasker Award
Gary Ruvkun, a Harvard Medical School genetics professor in the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) Center for Computational and Integrative Biology, is one of three scientists named co-recipients of the 2008 Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research. The Lasker Awards of the Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation are often refered to as the “American Nobel Prize,”…
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Health
Advanced blood analysis may speed diagnosis of heart attacks
Someday doctors may be able to use a blood test to confirm within minutes, instead of hours, if a patient is having a heart attack, allowing more rapid treatment that could limit damage to heart muscle. A study led by investigators from Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT reports…
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Health
Daley and colleagues create 20 disease-specific stem cell lines
Harvard Stem Cell Institute (HSCI) researcher George Q. Daley, associate director of the Stem Cell Program at Children’s Hospital Boston, has with HSCI colleagues Chad Cowan and Konrad Hochedlinger of Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) produced a robust new collection of disease-specific stem cell lines, all of which were developed using the new induced pluripotent stem…
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Health
Daley and colleagues create 20 disease-specific stem cell lines
Harvard Stem Cell Institute (HSCI) researcher George Q. Daley, associate director of the Stem Cell Program at Children’s Hospital Boston, has with HSCI colleagues Chad Cowan and Konrad Hochedlinger of Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) produced a robust new collection of disease-specific stem cell lines, all of which were developed using the new induced pluripotent stem…
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Health
Potential diabetes treatment selectively kills autoimmune cells from human patients; study confirms feasibility of human trials
In experiments using blood cells from human patients with diabetes and other autoimmune disorders, Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) researchers have confirmed the mechanism behind a potential new therapy for type 1 diabetes. A team led by Denise Faustman, MD, PhD, director of the MGH Immunobiology Laboratory, showed that blocking a metabolic pathway regulating the immune…
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Health
Bone marrow stem cells may help control inflammatory bowel disease
Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and Harvard Medical School investigators have found that infusions of a particular bone marrow stem cell appeared to protect gastrointestinal tissue from autoimmune attack in a mouse model.
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Science & Tech
Five faculty members named young innovators by Technology Review
Work on flying robots, surgical tape modeled on gecko feet, energy tips gleaned from plants, new ways to grow stem cells, and dramatically smaller medical imaging equipment has landed five Harvard faculty members on a list of the world’s top 35 young innovators. The annual list is compiled by Technology Review magazine and features what…
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Health
A rare glimpse of schizophrenia’s genetic roots
The delusions and hallucinations of schizophrenia can be devastating for the 1% of the population struck by the disease. The condition clearly has a genetic component, evidenced by its tendency to run in families. However, the search for specific genes or chromosomal regions involved has led to few reproducible findings. Results published in Nature by…
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Health
Growth hormone reduces abdominal fat, cardiovascular risk factors in HIV patients on antiviral therapy
Low-dose growth hormone treatment reduced abdominal fat deposits and improved blood pressure and triglyceride levels in a group of patients with HIV lipodystrophy, a condition involving the redistribution of fat and other metabolic changes in patients receiving combination drug therapy for HIV infection. However, growth hormone treatment appeared to increase blood glucose levels, particularly in…
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Health
MGH study shows how amyloid plaques may damage brain cells in Alzheimer’s disease
One of the major unanswered questions surrounding Alzheimer’s disease – whether and how the amyloid plaques found in the brains of patients with the neurodegenerative disorder actually damage neurons – may be closer to an answer.
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Health
GlaxoSmithKline and Harvard Stem Cell Institute announce major collaboration agreement
GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) and the Harvard Stem Cell Institute (HSCI) today announced that they have entered into a five-year, $25 million-plus collaborative agreement to build a unique alliance in stem cell science to hasten the development of treatments and cures for a range of diseases. GSK’s investment, one of the largest by a pharmaceutical company in…
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Health
Middle Eastern families yield intriguing clues to autism
Research involving large Middle Eastern families, sophisticated genetic analysis and groundbreaking neuroscience has implicated a half-dozen new genes in autism. More importantly, it strongly supports the emerging idea that autism stems from disruptions in the brain’s ability to form new connections in response to experience – consistent with autism’s onset during the first year of…
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Nation & World
Shelter amid a health care storm
South Africa’s Valley of 1,000 Hills is a broad and breathtaking natural contradiction, an enormous valley whose floor is crowded with hills large and small, as if nature wasn’t quite sure what it was making.
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Nation & World
Fighting AIDS now and in the future
In the heart of the South African AIDS epidemic, at a medical school named for the nation’s legendary anti-apartheid leader, a fight against a different sort of oppression is being waged.