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Campus & Community
Police reports
Following are some of the incidents reported to the Harvard University Police Department (HUPD) for the weeks beginning Aug. 18 and ending Sept. 14. The official log is located at 1033 Massachusetts Ave., sixth floor.
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Campus & Community
Drop on by!
Check out the new Harvard University Home Page as it makes its digital debut today (Sept. 19). In addition to an elegant new design, the refurbished home page is easier to navigate and includes new multimedia links. It also offers the visitor immediate access to the home pages of all the schools of the University.…
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Campus & Community
‘Movie Time’ arrives at Harvard
To celebrate the beginning of the new academic year, President Lawrence H. Summers has announced Its Movie Time at Harvard, a free outdoor film screening to be held at 6:45 p.m. on Sunday (Sept. 22) in Tercentenary Theatre. The event is open to members of the University community and their families, and will feature complimentary…
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Campus & Community
This month in Harvard History
Sept. 17, 1701 – Increase Mather steps down as President.
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Campus & Community
Faculty council Notice for Sept. 18
At its first meeting of the year the Faculty Council met with Professor Jennifer Leaning (HSPH) to discuss the work of the Committee to Review Sexual Assault Programs, Education, and Services in Harvard College, which Professor Leaning chairs. The staff of this committee, Julia Fox of the Office of the Dean of Harvard College and…
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Campus & Community
Labor initiatives implemented, values statement released
With substantial raises in place for its lowest-paid workers, Harvard is implementing other important initiatives recommended by the Harvard Committee on Employment and Contracting Policies (HCECP) and approved by President Lawrence H. Summers last December. These include creation of a University-wide values statement, introduction of new training for supervisors, and production of multilingual brochures for…
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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
HIV-1 positive mothers taking vitamin A increase risk of transmitting HIV to newborns
In many regions of Africa, between 15 and 30 percent of women attending prenatal care clinics are HIV-1 positive. And 20 to 45 percent of children born to HIV-1 positive mothers become infected through breastfeeding or during intrauterine or labor and delivery periods. Mother-to-child transmission of HIV-1 has been attributed in part to poor maternal…
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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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Campus & Community
September 11 observance draws 10,000 to Tercentenary Theatre
More than 10,000 members of the Harvard University community gathered in Tercentenary Theatre at noon today (Sept. 11) to mark the one-year anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks. With words, music, and prayer, students, religious leaders, and President Lawrence H. Summers honored the day’s tragic events and offered messages of peace and hope.
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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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Science & Tech
Pregnancy and delivery deadly for many Afghan women
Lynn Amowitz, a researcher at Brigham and Women’s Hospital an a medical instructor at Harvard Medical School, found that women in the Herat province of Afghanistan receive some of the most inferior maternal healthcare in the world. Many clinics in the province lacked the basic medical supplies necessary for healthy delivery, such as forceps and…
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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
Battling toxic molds
Molds are found in all kinds of environments. Estimates of the number of kinds of molds range from tens of thousands to more than 300,000, with more than 1,000 species known to typically grow indoors, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. While many molds appear to be benign to humans — and…
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Science & Tech
Harvard Law School researchers track China’s Web filtering policies
“We’re hoping to make clear what’s blocked and what’s not—something only previously understood piecemeal,” said Professor Jonathan Zittrain, faculty co-director of the Berkman Center. “With the right data, we can come to an understanding of how that list of sites evolves over time — how much attention is paid to maintaining the list, how readily…
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Health
Maternal history influences risk of asthma in children exposed to cats
Recent studies have gathered evidence that cat exposure during infancy can be protective against asthma. Research at Brigham and Women’s Hospital confirmed these findings in all but one situation: when the child’s mother has asthma. Researchers found that in a group of children with non-asthmatic mothers, those exposed to a cat were 40 percent less…
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Science & Tech
Beyond the Beltway: Focusing on Hometown Security
“Beyond the Beltway: Focusing on Hometown Security,” prepared by participants in the Kennedy School’s Executive Session on Domestic Preparedness, calls upon federal officials to place greater emphasis upon local emergency planning efforts as an integral part of the national security strategy. That strategy, the report concludes, must go beyond the formation of a Department of…
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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
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
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
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
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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Campus & Community
James Thomson, former Nieman curator, dies at 70
James C. Thomson, former Nieman Foundation curator, East-Asia historian, and key figure in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, died Aug. 11, at Newton-Wellesley Hospital, of cardiac arrest after a brief illness. He was 70.
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Campus & Community
John Ruggie named director of CBG
John Ruggie, Kennedy School of Government (KSG) professor and former assistant secretary-general of the United Nations, has been named director of KSGs Center for Business and Government (CBG), KSG Dean Joseph S. Nye Jr. announced this month.
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Campus & Community
Rare disease provides cancer clues
While studying a rare genetic disease, scientists have unexpectedly found a new way to detect a variety of inherited cancers.
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Campus & Community
Harvard to mark anniversary of Sept. 11 with solemn remembrance
The University observance of the anniversary of the tragedy of Sept. 11, 2001, will be held in Tercentenary Theatre at noon on Wednesday, Sept. 11. President Lawrence H. Summers will be the principal speaker.
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Campus & Community
Sarkis named first Aga Khan Professor
Dean of the Graduate School of Design (GSD) Peter G. Rowe has named A. Hashim Sarkis the first Aga Khan Professor of Landscape Architecture and Urbanism in Muslim Societies. Sarkis has taught at the GSD since 1995 and has been associate professor of architecture since January 2001. His teaching has covered a range of topics,…