Health

Harvard Stem Cell Institute researchers studying spinal muscular atrophy have found molecular changes that help trigger the genetic disease in children.

Gene-editing study reveals pathway that could help short circuit sickle cell disease.

With parents and kids in back-to-school mode, refocusing on the daily demands of homework, sports, and activities, time spent staring at a screen comes at a premium. Steven Gortmaker, professor of the practice of health sociology at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, has been studying how we have used and sometimes abused screen time since the 1980s, when he published one of the first studies linking TV watching to obesity.

An international team of researchers led by Harvard’s Pardis Sabeti have sequenced the genomes of hundreds of samples of Lassa fever and are using that data to try to unlock the virus’ secrets.

New porous hydrogel could boost success of some stem cell-based tissue regeneration, researchers say.

The world is smaller than ever when it comes to infectious disease, a fact that means people have more at stake than ever before in each other’s health, speakers said at a symposium marking the fifth anniversary of the Harvard Global Health Institute.

While recent federal guidelines enhanced the nutritional quality of school lunches, there are no standards regarding lunch period length. Many students have lunch periods that are 20 minutes or less, which can be an insufficient amount of time to eat, according to a new study from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

By first looking broadly at possible environmental factors and then deeply at preclinical models of multiple sclerosis (MS), a BWH research team found that melatonin — a hormone involved in regulating a person’s sleep-wake cycle — may influence MS disease activity.

Research led by a Harvard professor describes in detail how termite mounds are ventilated.

Research led by Carolyn Eng delivers insights into how the IT band stores and releases elastic energy to make walking and running more efficient.

Twelve advanced research projects aimed at developing new therapies and diagnostics receive support from Harvard’s Blavatnik Biomedical Accelerator.

New research shows that bird beaks are the result of skeletal changes controlled by two genetic pathways, shedding light on the origins of one of nature’s most efficient tools.

Until now, scientists thought that epithelial cells — which line not only the lung’s airways but major cavities of the body and most organs — just sat there motionless. A Harvard study shows that in asthma the opposite is true.

New biosensors developed by Wyss Institute core faculty member George Church enable complex genetic reprogramming of common bacteria like E. coli and could be leveraged for sustainable biomanufacturing, using the metabolic processes of bacterial cells to generate valuable chemicals and fuels.

Harvard researchers report that by identifying and mimicking important developmental cues, they have been able to drive cells to grow into muscle fibers capable of contracting in a dish and multiplying in large numbers. This new method of producing muscle cells could offer a better model for studying muscle diseases, such as muscular dystrophy, and for testing potential treatments.

Harvard Stem Cell Institute researchers at Massachusetts Eye and Ear have reconstructed an ancient virus that is highly effective at delivering gene therapies to the liver, muscle, and retina.

Drinking enough water is essential for physiological processes such as circulation, metabolism, temperature regulation, and waste removal. More than half of all children and adolescents in the United States are under-hydrated — probably because they’re not drinking enough water, according to the first national study of its kind from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

New findings reveal how genomic imprinting can dramatically expand biological diversity, and could have important implications for understanding the brain.

Research on the evolutionary history of the anole lizard became an international adventure for Professor Jonathan Losos.

Harvard researchers have found a gene therapy that delivers a protein that suppresses the development of female reproductive organs. This new treatment could improve the survival of patients with ovarian cancer that has recurred after chemotherapy. Recurrence happens 70 percent of the time and is invariably fatal.

Using large-scale zebrafish drug-screening models, Harvard Stem Cell Institute researchers at Boston Children’s Hospital have identified a potent group of chemicals that helps bone marrow transplants engraft, or “take.”

In response to a recent poll that found most adults who played sports when they were younger stopped doing so as they aged, a panel of experts convened at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health explored how to keep adults in the game.

Online symptom checkers can often be wrong in both diagnosis and triage advice, but they still may be useful alternatives to phone triage services and Internet searches.

A new test can accurately diagnose the Ebola virus disease within minutes at the point of care.

Efforts by Harvard faculty to understand island evolution form the centerpiece of a new exhibition at the Harvard Museum of Natural History.

A global team from Harvard University, the Broad Institute, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, and other institutions sequenced more than 200 additional Ebola samples to capture the fullest picture yet of how the virus is transmitted and changes over a long-term outbreak.

Panelists at the Harvard Chan School weighed the possible implications of the latest Supreme Court challenge to the Affordable Care Act.

Leaders in the global fight to eradicate malaria are at Harvard this week for a leadership training course that explores many facets of the scientific underpinnings of the effort to eradicate malaria from the planet.

Mary Caswell Stoddard of Harvard’s Society of Fellows is bringing an interdisciplinary approach to her study of bird eggs.

Scientists at Harvard Stem Cell Institute have found a way to both make more energy-burning human brown fat cells and make the cells themselves more active, a discovery that could have therapeutic potential for diabetes, obesity, and other metabolic diseases.