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Health
Cancer drug activates adult stem cells
The use of a drug used in cancer treatment activates stem cells that differentiate into bone appears to cause regeneration of bone tissue and be may be a potential treatment strategy for osteoporosis, according to a report in the February 2008 Journal of Clinical Investigation. The study – led by Harvard Stem Cell Institute (HSCI)…
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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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Health
Harvard researchers receive $14 million TB study grant
Harvard researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH), Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH), Harvard Medical School (HMS) and Partners In Health (PIH) have received a grant of $14 million over five years from the National Institutes of Health to study multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) and extensively drug resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB). The goal of the project…
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Science & Tech
HarvardScience website wins top awards in two categories
The Interactive Media Council has named the HarvardScience website “Best in Class” in both the medicine and science categories of its annual Interactive Media Awards competition. In notifying HarvardScience of the award, the Council wrote that “the Best in Class award is the highest honor bestowed by the InteractiveMedia Awards. It represents the very best…
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Science & Tech
Scientists may have identified new target for HIV vaccine
By coaxing the HIV-1 protein to reveal a hidden portion of its protein coat, scientists at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School have provided a newly detailed picture of how protective, or so-called broadly neutralizing, antibodies block HIV-1 infection. In a study in the January issue of Immunity, the investigators report that the discovery…
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Campus & Community
Harvard announces coordinated academic calendar
Harvard President Drew Faust announced today the adoption of a coordinated academic calendar that synchronizes the academic schedules of Harvard’s 13 Schools.
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Health
M. Judah Folkman, biomedical pioneer, dies at 74
One of Harvard Medical School’s (HMS) most forward-looking and innovative physician-scientists, M. Judah Folkman, died suddenly Monday (Jan. 14) after suffering a heart attack at the Denver International Airport in Denver. He was 74. Folkman is widely known as a pioneer in the study of angiogenesis, the growth of new blood vessels. His findings in…
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Health
Peter Black named President-Elect of World Federation of Neurosurgical Societies
Peter Black, MD, PhD, Franc D. Ingraham Professor of Neurosurgery at Harvard Medical School and founding chair of the Brigham and Women’s Hospital Department of Neurosurgery has been elected President-Elect of the World Federation of Neurosurgical Societies (WFNS), a professional and scientific nongovernmental organization composed of five continental associations, 89 national neurosurgical societies and six…
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Health
Chromosomal abnormality linked to autism disorders
Researchers have fitted another piece into the complex genetic puzzle that is autism, finding DNA deletions and duplications on a specific chromosome that they say explains one to two percent of the 1.5 million cases of autism and related disorders in the United States today. The genetic changes were discovered in DNA scans of more…
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Campus & Community
Harvard statement on misuse of IDs
An investigation by law enforcement has identified a Harvard College student who had produced counterfeit state driver’s licenses and Harvard University identification cards that, in some cases, used actual Harvard identification numbers. There has been no indication of further activity of this nature. The student is no longer on the Harvard campus.
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Science & Tech
Neuroimaging fails to demonstrate ESP is real
Psychologists at Harvard University have developed a new method to study extrasensory perception that, they argue, can resolve the century-old debate over its existence. According to the authors, their study not only illustrates a new method for studying such phenomena, but also provides the strongest evidence yetobtained against the existence of extrasensory perception, or ESP.…
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Science & Tech
E. O. Wilson receives Linean Society Tercentenary Medal
The Linnean Society of London has awarded Edward O. Wilson, Pelegrino University Research Professor, Emeritus, one of three specially-commissioned Tercentenary Medals to honor his outstanding contribution to the world’s understanding of natural history and the environment. HRH The Princess Royal presented the award Wilson and to Sir David Attenborough, and Steve Jones, the other two…
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Health
Those least needy most likely to get free drug samples
Most free drug samples are not used to ease the burden of the poor or the uninsured, but rather go to those most able to pay for their prescriptions, according to a study by physicians from Cambridge Health Alliance and Harvard Medical School. The study, which is the first to look at the free drug…
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Health
Gene variation may elevate risk of liver tumor in patients with cirrhosis
A genetic variation appears to significantly increase the risk that individuals with cirrhosis of the liver will develop hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), a liver tumor that is the third leading cause of cancer death. Researchers from Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) Cancer Center and colleagues in France describe in the January 2 edition of the Journal of…
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Science & Tech
Turning on cells with magnetic switches
Harvard scientists have figured out how to turn cells on and off using magnets, an advance with potentially broad applications as researchers around the world work to find new ways to manipulate cells and correct cellular functions that diseases send awry. Donald Ingber, the Judah Folkman Professor of Vascular Biology at Harvard Medical School and…
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Health
Harvard researchers achieve stem cell milestone
Harvard Stem Cell Institute researchers have successfully turned back the clock on human skin cells, causing them to revert to an embryonic stem cell-like state from which they can become any cell in the body. The work, published online Sunday (Dec. 23) by the journal Nature, is an independent report similar to the stem cell…
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Science & Tech
Sulfur dioxide may have helped maintain a warm early Mars
Sulfur dioxide (SO2) may have played a key role in the climate and geochemistry of early Mars, geoscientists at Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) suggest in the Dec. 21 issue of the journal Science. Their hypothesis may resolve longstanding questions about evidence that the climate of the Red Planet was once…
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Health
Microchip-based device can detect rare tumor cells in bloodstream
A team of investigators from the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) BioMicroElectroMechanical Systems (BioMEMS) Resource Center and the MGH Cancer Center has developed a microchip-based device that can isolate, enumerate and analyze circulating tumor cells (CTCs) from a blood sample. CTCs are viable cells from solid tumors carried in the bloodstream at a level of one…
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Science & Tech
Discovery of a key molecular switch regulating cancer stem cells
The role of stem cells in tumor development has, unexpectedly, been one of the biggest stories in cancer research over the past few years. These aren’t embryonic stem cells, but rather tumor stem cells. These mutated cells, which live indefinitely and can seed new tumors, are now suspected of causing many, if not all, cancers.…
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Health
New survey of public attitudes on cold and cough medications for children
A new survey from NPR, the Kaiser Family Foundation, and the Harvard School of Public Health examines the public’s views of over-the-counter children’s cold and cough medications in the wake of recent concerns raised by a Food and Drug Administration (FDA) advisory panel, the media and the pharmaceutical industry regarding their safety and effectiveness. The…
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Health
Researchers discover second light-sensing system in human eye
New research on blind subjects has bolstered evidence that the human eye has two separate light-sensing systems — one that perceives the familiar visual signals that allow us to see and a second, separate system that tells our body when it is day or night. Researchers have long known that the eye performed both functions…
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Science & Tech
Chimps in wild appear not to regularly experience menopause
A pioneering study of wild chimpanzees has found that these close human relatives do not routinely experience menopause, rebutting previous studies of captive individuals which had postulated that female chimpanzees reach reproductive senescence at 35 to 40 years of age. Together with recent data from wild gorillas and orangutans, the finding — described this week…
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Campus & Community
Beyond early admissions
Harvard, Princeton and the University of Virginia scout the Southeast in a joint recruitment trip, advertising affordability and economic diversity.
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Campus & Community
Brandt appointed dean of Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences
Allan M. Brandt, who holds appointments in Harvard University’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) and the Medical School, has been named dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (GSAS) at Harvard, effective Jan. 1.
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Science & Tech
Female lower back has evolved to accommodate strain of pregnancy
According to a new study by researchers at Harvard and the University of Texas at Austin, women’s lower spines evolved to be more flexible and supportive than men’s to increase comfort and mobility during pregnancy, and to accommodate the special biology of carrying a baby for nine months while standing on two feet. The study…
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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.”…