Featured series 
Tag: Work in Progress
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Health
Gene silencing may cause limitations of induced pluripotent stem cells
Scientists may be one step closer to being able to generate any type of cells and tissues from a patient’s own cells, according to the results of a new study by Harvard stem cell researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH). Konrad Hochedlinger, PhD, an associate professor in Harvard’s inter-school department of stem cell and regenerative biology (SCRB),…
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Health
Video can help patients make end-of-life decisions
Viewing a video showing a patient with advanced dementia interacting with family and caregivers may help elderly patients plan for end-of-life care, according to a study led by Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) researchers. See the advanced dementia video More videos from the same researcher In their report in the journal BMJ, the investigators found that…
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Science & Tech
Spiral swimmers may prove micro workhorses
Harvard researchers have created a new type of microscopic swimmer: a magnetized spiral that corkscrews through liquids and is able to deliver chemicals and push loads larger than itself. Though other researchers have created similar devices in the past, Peer Fischer, a junior fellow at the Rowland Institute at Harvard, said the new nano-robot is…
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Health
Cancer chemotherapy: An unfolding story
To launch his lecture on cancer chemotherapy, Luke Whitesell ’79, RI ’06 displayed an image of an origami crab: a double visual metaphor. The crab is the traditional symbol of cancer. And Whitesell, a senior research scientist at the Whitehead Institute, has focused on how the artful folding of proteins in cells may offer clues…
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Health
HMS professor devises single test for cancers
Imagine visiting a doctor’s office five years from now and, as a routine part of your annual physical, getting an accurate test that can tell whether you have cancer long before you have either symptoms or tumors detectable by other methods. Such a test may be in the offing if early data from both laboratory…
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Health
Waist size predictor of heart failure in men and women
Adding to the growing evidence that a person’s waist size is an important indicator of heart health, a study led by investigators at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) has found that larger waist circumference is associated with increased risk of heart failure in middle-aged and older populations of men and women.
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Health
Simple bedside test improves diagnosis of chronic back pain
A simple and inexpensive method of assessing pain, developed by Harvard researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), is better than currently used techniques for distinguishing neuropathic pain – pain caused by damage to the nervous system — from other types of chronic back pain. Being able to more precisely determine the underlying nature of the…
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Health
Amy Wagers – focusing on stem cell biology
Twenty minutes after her weekly lab meeting is scheduled to begin, Amy Wagers rushes into a conference room on the fourth floor of the Joslin Diabetes Center, where her lab team sits, chatting around a long oval table. “Sorry I’m late,” she calls out, closing the door behind her. “Oh good, the food’s here!” Grabbing…
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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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Science & Tech
Trafficked
Slight and soft-spoken, the dark-eyed girl called Gina looks into the camera and speaks of her ordeal in a flat, disembodied voice, chronicling a story relived a thousand times. “The first night, they forced me to have sex. When I refused, they held me down, beat me, and raped me. I was seven years old.”…
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Health
It took a novel tack to discover an obesity gene
The racing sailboat was small, and Christoph Lange wanted to be sure he didn’t capsize and plunge into the Charles River again, as he’d done half a dozen times that spring. Using his blue sailing shoes for leverage, he carefully arranged himself on the craft’s cramped bench and reached for the tiller. The day was…
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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
Major progress toward cell reprogramming
Two Harvard Stem Cell Institute (HSCI) researchers and scientists at Whitehead Institute and Japan’s Kyoto University have independently taken major steps toward discovering ways to reprogram cells in order to direct their development – a key goal in developmental biology and regenerative medicine. Additionally, the group led by Kevin Eggan, an HSCI principal faculty member…
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Health
Pursuing a cholera vaccine
The reports from Dhaka are hopeful. It is 2005, and Dr. Firdausi Qadri and colleagues at the International Center for Diarrheal Disease Research, Bangladesh, are testing a new cholera vaccine on children. In their study, a single dose of live, crippled bacteria goes down easily in a fizzy drink. Within days, most of the children…
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Health
Opossum genome shows ‘junk’ DNA source of genetic innovation
A tiny opossum’s genome has shed light on how evolution creates new creatures from old, showing that change primarily comes by finding new ways of turning existing genes on and off. The research, by an international consortium led by the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, revises our understanding of genetic evolution. Scientists previously thought…
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Science & Tech
‘Usable Knowledge’ Web site delivers research to educators
The Harvard Graduate School of Education on Dec. 6, 2006, launched a new Web site aimed at connecting the research of its faculty with educators in the field. The Usable Knowledge Web site features a diverse set of media – text, video, and audio – to make the leading research of its faculty accessible to…
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Health
Harvard researchers map new form of genetic diversity
A new map of human genetic diversity provides a powerful tool for understanding how each person is unique. Created by researchers at Harvard Medical School, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and other institutions around the world, the map focuses on the number of copies of large segments of DNA present in each individual. Though humans normally…
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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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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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Health
Study shows benefits of eating fish greatly outweigh risks
Many studies have shown the nutritional benefits of eating fish (finfish or shellfish). Fish is high in protein and omega-3 fatty acids. But concerns have been raised in recent years about chemicals found in fish from environmental pollution, including mercury, PCBs and dioxins. That has led to confusion among the public – do the risks…
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Campus & Community
‘Face-blindness’ disorder may not be so rare
Researchers at Harvard University and University College London have developed diagnostic tests for prosopagnosia, a socially disabling inability to recognize or distinguish faces. They’ve already used the new test and a related Web site (http://www.faceblind.org) to identify hundreds of “face-blind” individuals, far more than scientists had identified previously. The researchers, led by Ken Nakayama and…
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Campus & Community
Laser advance could open up new markets
Applied scientists from Harvard University have, for the first time, demonstrated high-power continuous wave (cw) room-temperature quantum cascade (QC) lasers made by a well-established mass production semiconductor synthesis technique. The breakthrough could soon lead to the large-scale commercialization of QC lasers and open up new markets for laser-based chemical sensors. The new generation of QC…
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Health
Ancient molecules guide new synapse growth
Recent research has shifted the understanding of a group of specialized molecules in the extracellular matrix, recasting them from scaffolding only to key cue-providers that help guide the formation of the nervous system. The findings are reported in the Feb. 16, 2006 Neuron by Misao Higashi, April Duckworth, Aurnab Ghose, Thomas Schwarz, Alan Tenney, David…
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Health
Gingko may prevent ovarian cancer
Researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital have found initial laboratory and epidemiological evidence that, for the first time, demonstrates that ginkgo may help lower a woman’s risk of developing ovarian cancer. The findings were presented at the American Association for Cancer Research’s annual meeting in Baltimore on Oct. 31, 2005. In a population-based study, which…
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Health
Sublethal force: New antibiotic aims to tame bacterial toxins
Using an innovative screening approach, researchers in the lab of John Mekalanos have identified an entirely new class of antibiotics active against the cholera bacterium. While traditional antibiotics kill bacteria outright by interfering with processes essential for their survival, the new agents block production of bacterial proteins that promote infection and cause cholera symptoms. Tests…
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Health
An existing diuretic may suppress seizures in newborns
A diuretic drug called bumetanide may serendipitously help treat seizures in newborns, which are difficult to control with existing anticonvulsants, according to a study in the November 2005 Nature Medicine. The study findings could lead to clinical trials of bumetanide in newborns, whose immature, rapidly- developing brains are especially vulnerable to seizures – particularly preterm…
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Campus & Community
A tale of a venomous dispute
Sea spiders as large as a foot across have been seen crawling along the deep ocean floor from the windows of submersible research vessels. Most of them, however, including those in a Harvard study, are a scant millimeter (.04 inch) in size. But big or small, they boast long snouts, on either side of which…
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Health
Brain injury reversed in animal model of AIDS
Depending on the circumstances, missing N-acetylaspartate (NAA) in the brain may indicate Alzheimer’s disease, ischemic stroke, a brain tumor, or traumatic injury. And, as doctors soon learned with the AIDS epidemic, NAA levels drop in tandem with the neurological deterioration that further cripples people with HIV. Yet Gilberto Gonzalez was unprepared for the precipitous fall…