Featured series 
Tag: Massachusetts General Hospital
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Health
NIH awards Harvard Medical School $117.5 million, five-year grant for patient-centered research
The National Institutes of Health today announced that Harvard Medical School (HMS) will receive $117.5 million over the next five years for the establishment of a Clinical and Translational Science Center (CTSC) that will transform patient-oriented, laboratory-to-bedside research at HMS and its affiliated hospitals. Harvard University, HMS, and a number of the affiliated hospitals are…
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Health
Experiment advances understanding of cell reprogramming
The announcement last year by scientists in Japan, at the Harvard Stem Cell Institute (HSCI), and at the Whitehead Institute that they had each — independently — coaxed adult cells into reverting to an embryonic stem cell-like state was arguably the biggest news in developmental biology since the cloning of Dolly the ewe. This creation…
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Health
Elevated urate levels may slow progression of Parkinson’s disease
Naturally elevated levels of the antioxidant urate may slow the progression of Parkinson’s disease in men. Researchers from the MassGeneral Institute for Neurodegenerative Disease (MGH-MIND) and Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) examined data from an earlier study and found that, among recently diagnosed Parkinson’s patients, those with the highest urate levels had a significantly…
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Health
Stem cells open window on disease processes
A panel of Harvard Stem Cell Institute experts said recently that stem cell research’s biggest impact on patients’ health likely won’t come from therapies that inject stem cells or implant tissues made from them, but rather from the knowledge gained by examining diseased tissues grown from the cells. Kenneth Chien, head of the Harvard Stem…
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Health
Initial human trial of Type 1 diabetes treatment begun
Scientists at the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) have initiated a phase 1 clinical trial to reverse type 1 diabetes. The trial is exploring whether the promising results from the laboratory of Denise Faustman, Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, can be applied in human diabetes. A phase 1 trial is usually designed to…
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Health
Medical basics still needed in Developing World
Despite all the progress and promise of modern medicine, most of the world is still struggling to get the fundamentals of medical care: simple diagnostic tests, affordable medicines, and efficient supply distribution, several Harvard specialists said today. During the AAAS symposium “High-Tech, Low-Cost Medicine: A New Paradigm for Global Health,” the doctors and researchers pointed…
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Health
Cancer drug activates adult stem cells
The use of a drug used in cancer treatment activates stem cells that differentiate into bone appears to cause regeneration of bone tissue and be may be a potential treatment strategy for osteoporosis, according to a report in the February 2008 Journal of Clinical Investigation. The study – led by Harvard Stem Cell Institute (HSCI)…
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Health
HOPE in African HIV/AIDS fight
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. That’s the address of the Harvard Initiative for Global Health (HIGH), a multidisciplinary group that supports interfaculty research on worldwide…
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Health
M. Judah Folkman, biomedical pioneer, dies at 74
One of Harvard Medical School’s (HMS) most forward-looking and innovative physician-scientists, M. Judah Folkman, died suddenly Monday (Jan. 14) after suffering a heart attack at the Denver International Airport in Denver. He was 74. Folkman is widely known as a pioneer in the study of angiogenesis, the growth of new blood vessels. His findings in…
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Health
Microchip-based device can detect rare tumor cells in bloodstream
A team of investigators from the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) BioMicroElectroMechanical Systems (BioMEMS) Resource Center and the MGH Cancer Center has developed a microchip-based device that can isolate, enumerate and analyze circulating tumor cells (CTCs) from a blood sample. CTCs are viable cells from solid tumors carried in the bloodstream at a level of one…
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Health
Prostate cancer treatments often not matched to patient needs
More than a third of men with early prostate cancer who participated in a study analyzing treatment choice received therapies that might not be appropriate, based on pre-existing problems with urinary, bowel or sexual function. The prevalence of these treatment “mismatches” could reflect patient’ unwillingness to discuss such problems with their physicians, the researchers suggest.…
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Health
Researchers in Japan and Wisconsin report major advance in stem cell research
“The field is moving at lightning speed,” said Harvard Stem Cell Institute (HSCI) Co-Director Doug Melton in response to just-published papers by Japanese researchers and researchers at the University of Wisconsin reporting reprogramming adult human skin cells to produce cells similar to human embryonic stem cells. But Melton and other researchers are cautioning that…
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Health
Cerebral cortex thicker in people with migraines
People who suffer from migraine headaches have differences in an area of the brain that helps process sensory information, including pain, according to a study published in the November 20, 2007, issue of Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. The study found that part of the cortex area of the brain…
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Health
Obesity and overweight linked to higher prostate cancer mortality
Men who are overweight or obese when diagnosed with prostate cancer are at greater risk of death after treatment, according to a new study in the December 15, 2007 issue of CANCER, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society. The study has been released online ahead of print publication. The study, by Matthew R.…
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Health
Economic motivation could underlie some ordering of imaging tests
A new study by researchers at Institute for Technology Assessment in Massachusetts General Hospital’s (MGH) Department of Radiology finds that physicians who consistently refer patients to themselves or members of their own specialty for imaging studies, rather than to radiologists, are more likely to order such studies for a variety of medical conditions. The results…
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Health
Medical schools’ departments, department heads often have industry relationships
BOSTON – A study led by members of the Massachusetts General Hospital Institute for Health Policy (MGH-IHP) has found that institutional academic-industry relationships – financial relationships companies have with medical schools or teaching hospitals rather than with individual physicians or scientists – are as common and pervasive as individual relationships. Their report, the first nationwide…
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Health
Database of human genetic diversity allows identification of disease-associated genes
Investigators from six countries have completed the second phase of the International HapMap Project, an effort to identify and catalog genetic similarities and differences among populations around the world. Information provided in the first phase of the HapMap, completed in 2005, has led to the development of techniques facilitating the search for genes associated with…
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Science & Tech
Tracking down the seat of moral reasoning
Moral philosophers have long grappled with ethical questions, creating hypotheticals that test basic beliefs about right and wrong. For example: A trolley is running down a track out of control. If it keeps going, it will run over the five unsuspecting people hanging out on the track. You can prevent this disaster by throwing a…
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Health
Nine Harvard faculty members win NIH’s Pioneer, Innovator Awards
Nine Harvard researchers “well-positioned to make significant – and potentially transformative – discoveries in a variety of areas,” ranging from brain development to reprogramming stem cells, have been awarded special funding by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The grants, announced Tuesday (Sept. 18), total $15 million over the next five years. They will be…
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Campus & Community
Research reveals how stem cells build a heart
Master cells that give rise to the three main cell types in a human heart have been discovered by Harvard Stem Cell Institute scientists working independently at two Harvard-affiliated hospitals. Together they found that a single progenitor stem cell differentiates into cells that cause a heart to beat, that make up its internal surface, and…
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Campus & Community
Sensitivity to pain explained
Stabbing back pain or the aches of arthritis send some people to bed in misery while the same distress seems easily tolerated by others.
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Campus & Community
Key antibody IgG links cells’ capture and disposal of germs
Scientists have found a new task managed by the antibody that’s the workhorse of the human immune system: Inside cells, immunoglobulin G (IgG) helps bring together the phagosomes that corral invading pathogens and the potent lysosomes that eventually kill off the germs. The research, by Axel Nohturfft at Harvard University and colleagues at Harvard, Massachusetts…
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Campus & Community
Growth of spinal nerves is improved
Nerves that control the highest level of voluntary movements have been isolated and secrets of their growth revealed for the first time. During development, these nerves extend themselves from the brain to all levels of the spine with the help of a potent growth factor called IGF-1. This factor is well known to scientists. However,…
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Campus & Community
Body art for the faint of heart
Ever wish you could get rid of that tattoo of barbed wire around your wrist, or the forearm-length dragon you once thought of as so stylish or macho? It’s not easy. You can go through a long, expensive series of laser treatments, and still not get it completely erased. You can have it sanded off,…
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Science & Tech
Three-dimensional, miniature endoscope opens new diagnostic possibilities
Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) researchers have developed a new type of miniature endoscope that produces three-dimensional, high-definition images, which may greatly expand the application of minimally invasive diagnostic and therapeutic procedures. In the Oct. 19, 2006, issue of Nature, the team from the Wellman Center for Photomedicine at MGH describes their prototype device and a…
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Campus & Community
U.S. lagging in adoption of electronic health records
With fewer than one in 10 doctors making full use of electronic health records and as few as 5 percent of hospitals using one form of them, the U.S. health care industry is way behind in adopting new systems that can improve patient care and reduce medical mistakes, according to a new report co-authored by…
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Health
Prostate cancer treatment increases risk of diabetes, heart disease
A treatment mainstay for prostate cancer puts men at increased risk for diabetes and cardiovascular disease, according to a large observational study published in the Sept. 20, 2006, Journal of Clinical Oncology. “Men with prostate cancer have high five-year survival rates, but they also have higher rates of non-cancer mortality than healthy men,” says study…
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Campus & Community
Exercise boosts health of HIV-infected women
Betsy Lincoln felt pregnant all the time. Loss of muscle tone in her face, arms, and legs made her look so bad, she didn’t want to leave her apartment. She had little strength or endurance. Lifting one of her children or climbing a flight of stairs exhausted her. Lincoln (not her real name) is representative…
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Health
Nicotine vaccine to be tested at Massachusetts General Hospital
A novel approach to helping smokers kick the habit – a vaccine – will be tested at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH). The nicotine vaccine NicVax is designed to keep nicotine from reaching the brain where it produces its rewarding effects. Earlier studies of the vaccine, which has not yet received FDA approval, have indicated that…