Health

Harvard researchers at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute (DFCI) have identified a number of cancer genes that endow melanoma tumors with the ability to metastasize, making it possible to predict whether the tumors are likely to spread.

Treating the chromosome as both an editable and an evolvable template, researchers have demonstrated methods to rewrite a cell’s genome through powerful new tools for biotechnology, energy, and agriculture.

Not only is it important for physicians to be fully informed about any cancer in their patients’ family histories, but a massive new study led by a Harvard researcher at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and a University of California scientist indicates that it is important to update that history whenever there are contemporaneous changes in it.

In their largest and most comprehensive effort to date, researchers from the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, a Harvard affiliate, examined cells from more than 100 tumors, including 25 ovarian cancer tumors, to unearth the genes upon which cancers depend. They call it Project Achilles.

Although it sounds like a case of gender confusion on a molecular scale, the male hormone androgen spurs the growth of some breast tumors in women. In a new study, Harvard scientists at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute provide the first details of the cancer cell machinery that carries out the hormone’s relentless growth orders.

A strategy that has been shown to reduce age-related health problems in several animal studies may also combat a major cause of age-associated infertility and birth defects.

When the final mission of NASA’s 30-year Space Shuttle program is launched on Friday (July 8), an animal experiment to test a novel therapy to increase bone mass will be on board. Harvard Medical School Asssistant Professor Mary Bouxsein is among the lead researchers.

The U.S. Postal Service unveiled a new postage stamp honoring Asa Gray, founder of Harvard’s Herbaria and the man considered the founder of American botany, in a ceremony at the Harvard Museum of Natural History.

Results from a phase 1 drug trial by Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital researchers showed that a decades-old tuberculosis drug knocked out the autoimmune cells that attack diabetic patients’ insulin-producing cells, followed by indications that pancreatic function was improving, albeit transiently.

Scientists from around New England gathered at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard to discuss the latest research and findings about tuberculosis at the Fifth Annual New England Tuberculosis Symposium.

Speakers at a Harvard School of Public Health conference on smoking hailed the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy’s work to give the Food and Drug Administration new regulatory power over tobacco products and said, if wielded properly, it could prove a key weapon for better health.

Biologists from around the world are on campus this week for an international conference on invertebrate morphology sponsored by the Museum of Comparative Zoology, the Harvard Museum of Natural History, and the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology.

Researchers at Harvard’s Arnold Arboretum have highlighted female competition among plants, saying it is a new factor that could have driven the mystifying diversity of flowering plants.

After decades of failed efforts, researchers have discovered, through a combination of digital database mining and laboratory assays, the linchpin protein that drives mitochondria’s calcium machinery.

Harvard Medical School researchers find that ovarian cancer cells use mechanical force to move through tissue and colonize additional organs.

In a new report, Harvard researchers Malte Gather and Seok-Hyun Yun describe how a single cell genetically engineered to express green fluorescent protein can be used to amplify the light particles called photons into nanosecond-long pulses of laser light.

A Connecticut woman who was badly disfigured when she was mauled by a pet chimpanzee in 2009 received a full face transplant during surgery at Harvard-affiliated Brigham and Women’s Hospital.

Researchers at Joslin Diabetes Center, a Harvard Medical School affiliate, examine why a select group of long-term type 1 diabetes survivors show so few complications.

Harvard biologist Alfred W. Crompton shows that dogs drink not with a messy scoop of the tongue, but in a way similar to that of cats — by using adhesion and inertia to pull water from the bowl into their mouths.

A Harvard Medical School-led study shows that cancer care provided by the Veterans Health Administration for men 65 years and older is at least as good as, and by some measures better than, Medicare-funded fee-for-service care obtained through the private sector.

A duo of drugs, each targeting a prime survival strategy of tumors, can be safely administered and is potentially more effective than either drug alone for advanced, inoperable melanomas, according to a phase 1 clinical trial led by Harvard investigators at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.

An important new finding by Harvard researchers indicates that cellular mutations responsible for an organism’s successful adaptation do not, when combined over time, provide as much benefit as they would individually be expected to provide.

Harvard scientists at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute have identified an overactive network of growth-spurring genes that drive stem-like breast cancer cells enriched in triple-negative breast tumors, a typically aggressive cancer that is highly resistant to current therapies.

In a long-term study by Harvard researchers, data support the association between childhood ADHD and substance abuse risk.

Scientists are examining single-celled organisms in extreme environments for clues to what life might look like on the myriad planets being discovered in the universe.

Men who regularly drink coffee appear to have a lower risk of developing a lethal form of prostate cancer, according to a new study led by Harvard School of Public Health researchers.

A former White House official says health care technologies are ready to serve medicine, but the challenge will be ensuring that such innovations do not deepen existing disparities in care.

Gregory Connolly and the HSPH Center for Global Tobacco Control conduct research around the world to illuminate ongoing health problems caused by tobacco.

A project details changing levels of mercury in endangered albatrosses and highlights the importance of museum specimens in understanding past conditions.

Dallas Wiens, who in March became the first person in the United States to receive a full face transplant, described the simple joys of holding his daughter, Scarlette, and smelling lasagna again as he prepared to leave Harvard-affiliated Brigham and Women’s Hospital Monday (May 9) for his Texas home.