Featured series 
Tag: pulmonology
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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 were either left out or multiplied over and over – mistakes that are often associated with cancer. In this effort, SNP arrays have been used…
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Campus & Community
Mystery of how lungs grow is solved
The puzzle of how lungs grow has been solved. Scientists watching the process in mice embryos have found that budding and branching of new air sacs is driven by the mechanical stretching of individual cells. What’s more, they demonstrated that this growth can be adjusted by manipulating mechanical forces involved in the cells’ skeleton, a…
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Science & Tech
Study identifies mechanism of resistance to targeted therapy in lung cancer patients
Gefitinib acts on the receptor for the epidermal growth factor protein (EGFR) to halt the spread of cancer cells by fitting into the activating pocket of the protein, blocking the growth signals, and thereby depriving the cancer cells of the stimuli they need to survive and proliferate. In 2003, it was approved by the U.S.…
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Health
Black lung redux
There are approximately 500,000 asphalt workers in the United States today who have significantly increased risk of lung, stomach, bladder, and nonmelanoma skin cancer – yet little is known about this particular occupational hazard, and it was rarely studied until the early 1990s. Mike McClean, a researcher at the Harvard School of Public Health, is…
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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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Health
Treating advanced lung cancer with light
Photodynamic, or light, therapy was approved by the Food and Drug Administration in December 1998. The FDA has also approved using lasers for treatment of advanced stages of cancer of the esophagus. A surgeon can use lasers to shrink a tumor blocking an esophagus in about 15 minutes, as opposed to a five-hour operation to…
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Science & Tech
Air pollution deadlier than previously thought
The idea that air pollution is harmful is hardly new. However, critics of the previous research of Joel Schwartz, associate professor of environmental health at the Harvard School of Public Health, and other air pollution researchers have claimed that those who die from air pollution are the very ill who would have died within a…