Featured series 
Tag: Work in Progress
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Health
Dual signals may drive early breast cancer
Researchers from the lab of Joan Brugge, Harvard Medical School professor of cell biology, may have uncovered one of the central mechanisms of breast cancer. They found that dual signals provided by ErbB2, a cancer-associated gene commonly known as HER2, appear to be required to disrupt the framework of a breast gland during early tumor…
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Health
Genes found that regulate brain size
A gene that builds bigger brains, called beta-catenin, was discovered in the laboratory of Christopher A. Walsh, Bullard Professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School. Researchers there engineered increased activity into the beta-catenin gene in mice, and the mice brains grew to almost twice the usual size. Not only that, but the cerebral cortex, seat…
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Science & Tech
When problem-solving is a problem
If an ill-timed delivery left them short of linens, nurses observed by Harvard Business School doctoral student Anita Tucker found a way to borrow from another unit. Such initiative taking by empowered frontline workers is a good thing, right? Well, yes. And no. The bad news, said Tucker, is that the root causes of the…
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Health
Mammalian teeth regrown in lab
A study involved seeding cells from the immature teeth of six-month old pigs onto biodegradable polymer scaffolds. The researchers then placed these structures into rat hosts. Within 30 weeks, small, recognizable tooth crowns had formed. These contained dentin; odontoblasts, cells that secrete dentin-forming protein; a well-defined pulp chamber; Hertwig’s root sheath epithelia; cementoblasts, which form…
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Health
Chili peppers and inflammation
Researchers have discovered that the burinng pain of arthritis is similar to the pain associated with eating chili peppers. “The receptor activated by chili peppers in the mouth and other tissues also increases in the terminals of sensory neurons in the skin after inflammation, and this contributes to pain hypersensitivity,” says Clifford Woolf, director of…
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Health
Researchers isolate key part of cells’ ‘death’ signals
In the cover article of the September 2002 issue of the journal Cancer Cell, researchers from Dana-Farber Cancer Institute reported that peptide subunits of cell-signaling “BH3” proteins could out-maneuver opposing “anti-death” proteins and trigger the suicide process. Cell suicide or “apoptosis” prevents wayward cells from growing out of control and becoming cancerous. “Many cancer cells…
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Health
Protein seen to animate cell skeleton
The cytoskeleton is made up of arrays of actin filaments that are arranged into widely different structures — parallel arrays that mediate muscle contraction, networks of branched filaments at the leading edge of migratory cells, and parallel bundles required to pinch cells apart at the end of cell division. The critical juncture of filament growth…
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Health
Alzheimer’s-associated enzyme elevated in key brain areas
A research report that appears in the September 2002 issue of the journal Archives of Neurology may improve understanding of the most common form of Alzheimer’s disease. “Our key finding is that beta-secretase activity — the efficiency of how the enzyme works — is increased in Alzheimer’s diseased brains specifically in those areas affected by…
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Health
Studies find milk consumption, use of HRT, and pregnancy may influence hormone levels associated with cancer risk in women
IGF-1 is a hormone important to the growth and function of many organs. Higher levels of IGF-1 have been associated independently with an increased risk of a number of cancers, including prostate, colon, lung and breast cancer. Two studies examined the relationship between modifiable lifestyle factors and circulation levels of IGF-1 to potentially define new…
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Health
Experimental drug shows promise in treating severe, often-lethal complication of stem cell transplants
An experimental drug called defibrotide reversed severe veno-occlusive disease (VOD) of the liver in more than one third of the stem cell transplant recipients enrolled in a study. VOD is a type of potentially fatal liver damage that can result from the high doses of chemotherapy given prior to a transplant. The findings, to be…
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Science & Tech
Information Age will change doctors’ role in healing
Even as the Internet allows patients access to information previously only available through their doctors, patients still trust the information they get from their doctors more than they do from Web sites, current surveys suggest. Because of this, doctors may fill the role of advisers or consultants, helping patients not only sort through the information…
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Health
Glowing mouse shows how immune alarm rallies troops against invasion
In the body, dendritic and other antigen-presenting cells initially handle all infections in the body. The dendritic cells lurk in the skin, lungs, gut, and other tissues. On sentry duty, they continually snack on things around them, which might include a pathogenic bacterium. When a dendritic cell has gobbled a germ, it stops snacking and…
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Health
Resistance mutation found for Gleevec
The drug Gleevec was stunningly successful in treating patients with chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML) at early stages of disease, but quickly stopped working in most patients with more advanced forms of CML. Last year, researchers at UCLA headed by Charles Sawyers found that some resistant patients carried a mutant version of Bcr-Abl. The original mutation,…
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Health
Brake on Axon regrowth discovered
Since nerve cell axons in the mature central nervous system do not regrow, neurologists have no way of fully treating paralysis due to injury. “About a hundred years ago, people started asking why it was impossible to get the axon to regenerate upon injury,” said Zhigang He, Harvard Medical School assistant professor of neurology at…
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Health
Combined kidney and bone marrow transplantation allows patients to discontinue anti-rejection drugs
Megan Sykes, head of the bone marrow transplantation section of the Massachusetts Transplantation Biology Research Center and professor of surgery at Harvard Medical School, recently described how infusing kidney transplant recipients with bone marrow from their donors immediately after the transplant surgery induced a state of mixed chimerism, a blending of donor and recipient immune…
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Health
Scientists discover chemical switch that determines muscle fiber type
Published in the Aug. 15, 2002 issue of the journal Nature, findings from a multi-institutional team describe the pivotal role of a molecule called PGC-1 in transforming “fast twitch” fibers (Type II) to “slow twitch” fibers (Type I). “Fast twitch” fibers create the bulkier, strong but quickly fatigued muscles of weightlifters or sprinters. Most muscles…
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Health
Medical student engineers protein to dissolve blood clots
Heart attacks and strokes are caused by blood clots called thrombi that block blood flow in the arteries of the heart and of the brain. Body tissues become deprived of needed oxygen and nutrients, eventually dying. Cardiovascular disease is the number one killer of Americans each year — and has been since 1900 with the…
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Health
How the brain keeps extra calories from becoming extra pounds
What determines whether excess calories are turned into fat or are burned off? The key lies in a process known as diet-induced thermogenesis, an intricate system of communications masterminded by the brain which literally means “heat production,” according to the senior author of a new study, Bradford B. Lowell, of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center’s…
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Health
New multiple sclerosis drugs are found
Five years ago, scientists at Harvard University began to take a close look at Copolymer 1, a treatment for multiple sclerosis, that is put together from a string of amino acids, or protein pieces, assembled in random order. “We wanted to determine if there are one or two active compounds within the random Copolymer 1…
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Health
Diabetes treatment linked to increased blood pressure
Type II diabetes accounts for the majority of cases of the disease, and is a huge public health problem: As many as 16 million individuals in the United States have Type II diabetes, which puts them at risk for a number of serious complications, including stroke and heart disease. Although diabetes can often be controlled…
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Health
Practice makes perfect
Harvard Medical School researchers conducted a study in which people were taught to type a sequence of keys on a computer keyboard as quickly and accurately as possible. A group trained in the morning and then re-tested 12 hours later were able to improve their performance by about two percent. However, the performance of those…
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Health
Early administration of clot-buster drug may improve outcome for heart attack patients
The immediate goal of the treatment of heart attack patients is reperfusion, or the swift opening of the blocked artery and the restoration of blood flow to the heart muscle. Early reperfusion minimizes the extent of heart muscle damage and preserves the pumping function of the heart. Optimal benefit is obtained if reperfusion can be…
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Science & Tech
Building difference, breaking it down
Mica Pollock, an assistant professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, taught and did dissertation research in a California high school where she observed students “bending” racial categories. “What interested me was how young people were simultaneously throwing up for grabs the very idea that race existed and holding this idea of being ‘mixed,’…
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Health
Statistical work helps calm worries about anti-AIDS drugs and pregnancy
For years, physicians have prescribed antiretroviral therapies for HIV-positive, pregnant women to reduce the risk of babies being born with the AIDS virus. About 6,000 HIV-infected women give birth each year in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control. Concerns about the effects of anti-AIDS drugs and premature births were raised by…
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Science & Tech
Structuring 21st century government for homeland defense
A report by Kennedy School of Government lecturer Elaine C. Kamarck, “Applying 21st Century Government to the Challenge of Homeland Security,” offers some specific recommendations: — Create a National Terrorism Intelligence Center within the FBI to fuse intelligence gathering capabilities of national security agencies with investigative resources of law enforcement — Increase protection at the…
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Science & Tech
Study shows maintaining homeownership gains is key to strong economy
A June 2002 report by The Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University documents the strong demographic foundation of current and projected future housing market activity. According to the report, the housing sector is poised to set new records for production, sales, and aggregate home equity in the years ahead, as strong growth in…
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Health
Investigators discover method to stimulate brain rewiring after stroke
After a stroke, brain cells die and their connections to other parts of the brain are lost. In a study with rats conducted at Children’s Hospital in Boston, a naturally occurring substance called inosine was shown to stimulate nerve cells in undamaged parts of the brain to grow new connections into brain areas that had…