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Health
Glimpsing the birth of our earliest reproductive cells
It has long been a mystery how the developing embryo designates those rare, precious cells destined to produce sperm and eggs — enabling us to have offspring – since these primordial germ cells’ existence is fleeting and hard to spot with the tools of biology. Now, using mouse embryonic stem cells, Harvard Stem Cell Institute(HSCI)…
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Science & Tech
Four from Harvard win Presidential Early Career Awards in Science and Engineering
Four Harvard researchers have been named among the winners nationwide of this year’s Presidential Early Career Awards for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE). They are Roland G. Fryer Jr., Patrick J. Wolfe, Robert J. Wood, and Nonie K. Lesaux. The announcement came today from the White House. The PECASE program recognizes outstanding scientists and engineers who,…
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Health
Jeremiah Mead, architect of respiratory mechanics field, dies
Jeremiah “Jere” Mead, architect of the field of respiratory mechanics and professor emeritus in the Department of Environmental Health at the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH), passed away on July 4, 2009, at a health care facility in Ellsworth, Maine. He was 88 years old. Working in the 1950s with then-research fellow Mary Ellen…
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Campus & Community
Five area educators honored with Conant Fellowships
The Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE) presented five educators from the Boston and Cambridge public school systems with James Bryant Conant Fellowships in June. Each of the recipients will receive one year of study at HGSE.
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Health
When physicians share notes with their patients
Patients across the country are voicing a growing desire for greater engagement in, and control over, their own medical care. A new study led by Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) will examine the impact of adding a new layer of openness to a traditionally one-sided element of the doctor-patient relationship – the notes from…
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Science & Tech
Building a stellar time machine
Harvard researchers are building a celestial time machine that lets astronomers look back at hundreds of thousands of objects in the Earth’s skies over the past century.
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Arts & Culture
History on a small scale
On the second floor of Harvard’s Science Center is a temporary exhibit of 75 patent models from the 19th century, a time of prolific American invention that produced the revolver, zippers, trolley cars, and cash registers.
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Science & Tech
Social pressure keeps African AIDS patients in treatment
One of the surprises of the global AIDS epidemic has been the high level of adherence to antiretroviral drug treatment in sub-Saharan Africa.
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Health
Human cardiac master stem cells identified
Harvard Stem Cell Institute researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital have identified the earliest master human heart stem cell from human embryonic stem cells – ISL1+ progenitors – that give rise to a family of cells that form the essential portions of the human heart. The discovery, by a group led by Kenneth Chien, director of…
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Campus & Community
Regional bounty graces Allston market
Welcome solar rays scrubbed clouds out of the sky and shone down on the Harvard Allston Farmers’ Market. Now in its second year, the market is open every Friday from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m., through October. Bring big bags, and your appetite.
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Campus & Community
$100,000 in grants go to community projects
Over the next five years, Harvard will award grants to nonprofit groups serving North Allston/North Brighton.
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Health
Spinal fusion protein associated with complications, higher costs
In the United States, back pain continues to be a leading cause of disability and one of the most common reasons to see a physician for evaluation. Among various treatment options is spinal fusion surgery, which may use a biological agent known as bone-morphogenetic protein (BMP). Researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) found that…
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Health
Low blood sugar in hospital linked to higher death risk
Harvard researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) found that diabetics hospitalized for noncritical illnesses who develop hypoglycemia (low blood sugar) during hospitalization have an increased likelihood of remaining hospitalized longer and a greater risk of mortality both during and after hospitalization. This research appears in the July 2009 issue of Diabetes Care. Previous research…
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Health
AIDS research symposium details advances
Harvard AIDS researchers detailed recent advances in the fight against the ongoing global pandemic, including new vaccine strategies, insights into the disease’s progression in the world’s hardest-hit regions, and new knowledge about the body’s immune response against infection.
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Health
Safer stem cells for therapy
When stem cell researchers in Japan and the United States announced in 2007 that they had developed long-sought methods to return fully developed adult human cells to an embryonic-like state, the world of stem cell research was turned upside down.
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Science & Tech
Massachusetts Lt. Governor tours Harvard research facilities
Massachusetts Lt. Governor Timothy Murray on Wednesday toured Harvard labs in both Cambridge and Boston. “The Patrick Administration has been very supportive of the university research sector in Massachusetts and we welcomed the opportunity to show him the range of projects ongoing at Harvard, in both Cambridge and Longwood, that are cutting-edge, multidisciplinary and often…
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Campus & Community
Harvard Medical School fetes scholar, names chair
Harvard Medical School (HMS) will endow a new chair named for child psychiatrist Leon Eisenberg, the School’s longtime Maude and Lillian Presley Professor of Social Medicine, starting July 1.
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Health
Study pinpoints novel cancer gene and biomarker
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute scientists’ discovery of a cancer-causing gene – the first in its family to be linked to cancer – demonstrates how the panoramic view of genomics and the close-up perspective of molecular biology are needed to determine which genes are involved in cancer and which are mere bystanders. The findings are reported in…
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Health
A urine test for appendicitis?
Harvard researchers at Children’s Hospital Boston have identified a protein in the urine of appendicitis patients that they believe may provide the basis of a quick, noninvasive, accurate, and inexpensive test for the common condition.
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Health
Common ECG finding may indicate serious cardiac problems
A common electrocardiogram (ECG) finding that has largely been considered insignificant may actually signal an increased risk of atrial fibrillation (a chronic heart rhythm disturbance), the future need for a permanent pacemaker, and an increased risk for premature death. In their report in the June 24 Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), researchers from…
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Nation & World
Housing woes continue, says Harvard report
The worst U.S. housing downturn in generations continues to grind on, finds a study released today (June 22) by the Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University.
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Nation & World
Working to lift the fog of war
Thousands of miles from his Harvard lab, Kevin Kit Parker is lugging a gun and his engineer’s sensibilities through the mountains south of Kabul, in Afghanistan’s Wardak and Logar Provinces.
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Arts & Culture
Impressions of women
More than ever, the Harvard Art Museum is making it easier for scholars and students to use its permanent collection (more than 250,000 works) to shed light on a variety of disciplines.
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Health
D. Mark Hegsted, national force in science of human nutrition, dies
D. Mark Hegsted, who was instrumental in the development of the federal “Dietary Guidelines for Americans,” died Tuesday, June 16, 2009, at the age of 95 at a nursing center in Westwood, Mass. Hegsted was a founding member of the Department of Nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH), among the first such…
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Health
Computer scientists model cell division
Computer scientists at Harvard have developed a framework for studying the arrangement of tissue networks created by cell division across a diverse set of organisms, including fruit flies, tadpoles, and plants. The finding, published in the June 2009 issue of PLoS Computational Biology, could lead to insights about how multicellular systems achieve (or fail to…
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Science & Tech
Visitors will gravitate to ‘Black Holes’ exhibit
On Sunday, June 21, a new exhibit developed by educators and scientists at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) will open at the Boston Museum of Science. Called “Black Holes: Space Warps & Time Twists,” the traveling exhibition pulls visitors into the modern search for real black holes – the most mysterious and powerful objects…
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Health
Individual primates display variation in general intelligence
Scientists at Harvard University have shown, for the first time, that intelligence varies among individual monkeys within a species – in this case, the cotton-top tamarin.
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Health
Search for new tuberculosis drugs outlined
A new drug candidate that attacks the cell walls of tuberculosis bacteria offers a promising alternative in the fight against a disease that has been resurgent in the global age of AIDS, according to findings highlighted by a key researcher Friday (June 12) at the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT.