Featured series 
Tag: Research
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Health
Researchers identify promising gene target for neuroblastoma therapy
Researchers at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute have identified a set of previously unknown mutations in a single gene in 8 percent of neuroblastomas, tumors of the nervous system that occur in young children and account for approximately 15 percent of all childhood cancer deaths.
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Health
NYU chemist Robert Shapiro decries RNA-first possibility
Back in the depths of time, an event almost miraculously improbable happened, creating a long, unlikely molecule. And life arose on Earth. Or, if you prefer, back in the depths of time, in a soup of small, relatively common molecules, an unknown chemical reaction occurred, sustained itself, replicated … and life arose on Earth.
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Campus & Community
Two HSPH professors honored for their scientific contributions
Two members of the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) faculty have been elected to the Institute of Medicine (IOM) a national resource for independent, scientifically informed analysis and recommendations on human health issues. The IOM was established in 1970 by the National Academy of Sciences, and membership is a high honor in the health…
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Science & Tech
Controlling greenhouse gases, universities, individuals matter
From 1850 to 2000, the use of fossil fuels worldwide grew 140-fold, a practice that has gradually filled the Earth’s atmosphere with warming gases.
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Health
Cooper: Doctor-patient relations cause health disparities
In the United States, a black man can expect to die, on average, 10 years earlier than his white counterpart. For black women, that racial gap in life expectancy is five years.
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Campus & Community
Center for European Studies welcomes its fall fellows
The Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies (CES) has announced the arrival of its 2008 fall fellows. The CES is dedicated to fostering the study of European history, politics, and society at Harvard, and selects visiting scholars that will play an active role in the intellectual life of the CES and the University. While…
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Science & Tech
Black holes are the heart of galaxies
Astronomers think that many — perhaps all — galaxies in the universe contain massive black holes at their centers. New observations with the Submillimeter Array now suggest that such colossal black holes were common even 12 billion years ago, when the universe was only 1.7 billion years old and galaxies were just beginning to form.…
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Campus & Community
Belfer Center names fellows for 2008-09
The Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard Kennedy School recently announced the following new 2008-09 research fellows. These fellows conduct research within the Belfer Center’s International Security Program/Program on Intrastate Conflict (ICP) and Project on Managing the Atom (MTA).
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Health
Reading human history in the bones of animals
In a Siberian cave Patrick Wrinn found bones: bones of sheep and goats, bones of extinct bison and horses, of mammoths and wooly rhinoceroses. Wrinn, a doctoral student in archaeology at the University of Arizona and member of the Harvard Class of 1998, is trying to find out who — or what — put the…
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Health
Major step forward in cell reprogramming
Imagine, if you can, a day within the next decade when a physician-scientist could remove a skin cell from your arm and with a few chemicals turn that fully formed adult cell into a dish of stem cells genetically matched to you.
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Health
Study shows what smokers need to stay clean
Hospital-sponsored stop-smoking programs for inpatients that include follow-up counseling for longer than one month significantly improve patients’ ability to stay smoke-free. An analysis of clinical trials of programs offered at hospitals around the world finds that efforts featuring long-term support can increase participants’ chances of success by 65 percent.
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Health
Genetic ‘fingerprint’ shown to predict liver cancer’s return
Scientists have reached a critical milestone in the study of liver cancer that lays the groundwork for predicting the illness’s path, whether toward cure or recurrence. By analyzing the tissue in and around liver tumors, an international research team has identified a kind of genetic “fingerprint” that can help predict whether cancers will return.
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Campus & Community
Kuwait Program accepting grant proposals
The Harvard Kennedy School (HKS) has announced the 15th funding cycle for the Kuwait Program Research Fund, which is supported by the Kuwait Foundation for the Advancement of Sciences (KFAS). An HKS faculty committee will consider applications for one-year grants (up to $30,000) and larger grants for more extensive proposals to support advanced research by…
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Arts & Culture
Are boundaries between ‘the arts’ irrelevant?
What does Harpo Marx’s bicycle horn have to do with Richard Wagner’s epic opera “The Ring of the Nibelung”? Everything, if you ask Daniel Albright, Ernest Bernbaum Professor of Literature. Albright, who studies the intellectual history of comparative arts, is currently at work on a book about the boundaries and overlaps between different artistic media.
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Health
Study examines association between caffeine, breast cancer risk
Caffeine consumption does not appear to be associated with overall breast cancer risk, according to a report in the Oct. 13 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. However, there is a possibility of increased risk for women with benign breast disease or for tumors that are hormone-receptor negative or larger…
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Campus & Community
Weatherhead Center introduces 26 doctoral candidates for 2008-09
Twenty-six doctoral candidates will be supported by the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs for the 2008-09 year. The associates come from a multidisciplinary group of advanced-degree candidates in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences’ departments of Anthropology, Economics, Government, History, Health Policy, Middle East Studies, Social Policy, and Sociology. All of the students are…
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Science & Tech
HSCI creates Web presence for research
The Harvard Stem Cell Institute (HSCI) and the Harvard Initiative in Innovative Computing (IIC) have launched an online stem cell textbook that seeks to engage and inform the stem cell community as it presents up-to-date stem cell science in a format useful to scientists and students.
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Campus & Community
Smoking, burning solid fuels in homes in China projected to cause millions of deaths
If current levels of smoking and of burning biomass and coal fuel in homes continues in China, researchers estimate that between 2003 and 2033, 65 million deaths will be attributed to chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and 18 million deaths to lung cancer, accounting for 19 percent and 5 percent of all deaths in that…
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Science & Tech
Star quest knowledge provides new view of ourselves
In a basement laboratory at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA), surrounded by instruments built to detect the universe’s distant secrets, sits a machine that will help us look not outward to the stars, but inward at our own bodies.
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Arts & Culture
Power of the pen in early America
In 1747, three members of the Abenaki Native American tribe and their Mohawk ally posted a petition on a wall of an English fort in the Connecticut River Valley. The paper was small, but it spoke volumes.
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Campus & Community
Milton Fund deadline Oct. 15
Voting faculty from all of Harvard’s Schools and the Junior Fellows of the Society of Fellows are eligible to apply for grants from the Milton Fund, which supports original research by Harvard faculty. Milton grants have enabled hundreds of Harvard faculty, particularly assistant professors, to explore new ideas and launch innovative projects, often shaping lifelong…
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Campus & Community
Spend an ‘Evening with Champions’ Oct. 10-11
Top world skaters will skate for a cause this weekend (Oct. 10-11) when they gather at Bright Hockey Center for the Jimmy Fund’s annual “An Evening with Champions.” Hosted by 1992 Olympic silver medalist Paul Wylie ’90, the event has raised more than $2.4 million for the Jimmy Fund, which supports adult and pediatric cancer…
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Science & Tech
Arctic ice is thinning steadily
There was a polar bear sighting at Harvard last week. At Pforzheimer House on Thursday (Oct. 2), global warming expert James J. McCarthy delivered a crisp summary of how fast ice is melting in the Arctic — and why we should care. The audience of 80 took in his companion slide show, including images of…
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Campus & Community
HUHS Office of Alcohol & Other Drug Services named prevention leader
The Harvard University Health Services (HUHS) Office of Alcohol & Other Drug Services (AODS) was named this year’s “Outstanding Leader in Prevention” by the city of Cambridge. The award recognizes the Cambridge organization/agency that has provided Cambridge with superior service in the prevention of substance abuse.
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Campus & Community
Program allows gifted scholars to kick back and … work
Abena Dove Osseo-Asare studies African medicinal plants, including their fate at the hands of modern science and global patent systems.
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Campus & Community
The pine beetle’s tale: Destructive insect has pharmaceutical potential
Researchers at Harvard Medical School and the University of Wisconsin, Madison, have discovered how beetles and bacteria form a symbiotic and mutualistic relationship — one that ultimately results in the destruction of pine forests. In addition, they’ve identified the specific molecule that drives this whole phenomenon.
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Campus & Community
Harvard China Fund accepting 2010 proposals
The Harvard China Fund, under the Office of the Provost, has announced its fiscal year 2010 grants program for Harvard faculty, programs, and Schools. The purpose of the fund is to support interdisciplinary research and teaching in and about China, focus Harvard’s considerable strengths toward tackling the challenges that China faces, and improve communication and…
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Campus & Community
Harvard-Yenching Institute names doctoral fellows
Initiated in the 1960s, the Harvard-Yenching Institute’s Doctoral Scholars Program (DSP) now consists of two branches, the Harvard-DSP and Non-Harvard DSP. Each year the institute invites Harvard departments in the humanities and social sciences to nominate candidates for the Harvard doctoral scholarships. To be eligible for this program, candidates must be from Asia.