Hope flags when medications fail, isolating and endangering patients. Backed by a major grant, 2 Harvard scientists are focused on reducing the distance between diagnosis and recovery.
Researchers found that adult rats exposed to a social stress during adolescence (ages approximating 13 to 15 years in humans) showed a significant decrease in a specific protein found in…
In a frog, the position of the heart is determined within the first hour in the womb, Harvard scientists have discovered. Researchers all over the world believe that frogs and…
While the research is a far cry from proving that humans sprang from clay, as some creation myths assert, it does provide a possible mechanism for explaining how life initially…
Normally, a protein regulates when and how body parts develop, but when mutated, it triggers a rare, often-lethal infant leukemia called mixed lineage leukemia. The newly identified protease enzyme, Taspase1,…
Working with colleagues at the University of Rochester School of Medicine, Harvard researchers found that giving mice a hormone known for building bones increased their production of blood stem cells.…
A study, published by Dana-Farber researchers in the September 2003 issue of the Journal of General Internal Medicine, suggests that increasing medical students’ opportunities to learn about end-of-life care will…
Matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs) and their regulators, the tissue inhibitors of metalloproteinases (TIMPs), form an intriguing partnership. MMPs work by breaking down the dense matrix surrounding cells, freeing them to wander…
“Scientists have wondered for a long time why madness and creativity seem linked, particularly in artists, musicians, and writers,” notes Shelley Carson, a Harvard psychologist. “Our research results indicate that…
Alzheimer’s disease is notoriously difficult to diagnose. Though sophisticated functional and cognitive tests can help, they often fail to distinguish between Alzheimer’s and other non-amyloid-based dementias, particularly frontotemporal dementia. The…
The results of three studies published together in the Aug. 31, 2003 online edition of Nature Immunology help explain the uncanny ability of T cells to home to problem areas…
“To initiate a memory is almost like creating a word processing file on a computer,” explains researcher Matthew Walker, instructor of psychiatry at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard…
The prevalence of overweight and obese children has increased by 100 percent since the 1980s. Americans spend about $33 billion a year on weight loss products and services, however, only…
“The threat of resistance to antibiotics by bacteria increased so dramatically from the 1970s to the mid-1990s that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) labeled it a national…
Although millions of people across the country are registered organ donors, only 2 percent of them annually suffer brain death and meet the other medical requirements for being a cadaveric…
Findings from researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital could eventually help to solve problems ranging from cancer, to obesity, to the development of replacement organs. The findings involve the key physiological…
A study consisted of 11 public schools, including three state university campuses and eight state colleges that fall under the purview of the Massachusetts Board of Higher Education (MBHE). In…
Hip and wrist factures, suffered by more than 550,000 individuals annually, are a leading cause of hospitalization and death in the elderly. Often one fracture from osteoporosis leads to another,…
Blood platelets, which are transfused into those who lose too much blood from wounds, major surgery, or cancer treatments, can be kept for only five days. Then they must be…
Called resveratrol, a wonder substance discovered by Harvard researchers seems to work in the same way as does drastic calorie cutting. Dramatic reduction of calories has been shown to increase…
Research published in the Sept. 13, 2003 issue of the medical journal The Lancet shows that global tobacco deaths were about 4.8 million in 2000, with about 2.4 million each…
At a cellular level, life-sustaining activities such as glucose metabolism were thought to be carried out by entirely different proteins from those involved in apoptosis, or cell death. “People in…
A new vaccine prods the immune system to attack both the anthrax bacterium ( Bacillus anthracis ) and the toxins it makes. This dual action represents an improvement over the…
A research team led by Stefan Heller, a principal investigator at the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary’s Eaton-Peabody Laboratory and assistant professor at the Department of Otology and Laryngology at…
“The way we look at it, Alzheimer’s disease is really cancer of the brain,” says Rachael Neve, Harvard Medical School associate professor of psychiatry at McLean Hospital. “But neurons cannot…
There are approximately 500,000 asphalt workers in the United States today who have significantly increased risk of lung, stomach, bladder, and nonmelanoma skin cancer – yet little is known about…
A research team did the first global study of the potential increase in life expectancy if 20 well-known risk factors could be eliminated or reduced to safer levels. These factors…
Researchers at Harvard Medical School have identified a pattern of gene activity that seems to predict whether cancer will return after it is first treated. The ominous pattern shows up…
Researchers at Harvard Medical School and the Canadian Institute for Health Information, Canada’s quasi-official health statistics agency, analyzed the administrative costs of health insurers, employers’ health benefit programs, hospitals, nursing…
In the first study to investigate the potential benefit in humans of the use of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) in reducing the risk of Parkinson’s disease, Harvard School of Public…
A brain area involved with fear flashes more actively when white college students are exposed to subliminal views of black versus white faces. The students didn’t actually “see” the faces,…
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