Health

It’s increasingly believed among scientists that nearly every cancer contains small populations of highly dangerous cells — cancer stem cells — that can initiate a cancer, drive its progression, and create endless copies of themselves. On the theory that targeting these cells might be an effective therapeutic strategy, researchers around the world have begun isolating stem cells from various kinds of cancers. Now, for the first time, researchers at Children’s Hospital Boston and Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) have found a strategy that selectively targets cancer stem cells for destruction, successfully halting one of the deadliest cancers — melanoma — in mice.

Major differences in protocols used to determine brain death; Harvard researchers achieve stem cell milestone; Consortium links chromosome abnormality to autism disorders; Blocking HIV infection; Oral osteoporosis meds appear to reduce the risk of jaw degradation; Six new genetic variants linked to heart-disease risk factor; Gene variation may elevate risk of liver tumor in some patients; Cancer stem cells can be targeted for destruction

People who receive high doses of the chemotherapy drug methotrexate to treat a certain type of brain tumor appear to live longer than people receiving other treatments, according to research published in the Jan. 29 issue of Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

While hunting among chimpanzees is a group effort, key males known as “impact hunters” are highly influential within the group. They are more likely to initiate a hunt, and hunts rarely occur in their absence, according to a new study. The findings, which appear in the current issue of Animal Behaviour, shed light on how and why some animals cooperate to hunt for food, and how individual variation among chimpanzees contributes to collective predation.

Risk factors for suicidal thoughts, plans, and attempts are consistent across countries, and include having a mental disorder and being female, younger, less educated, and unmarried. So says new research from Harvard University and World Health Organization (WHO) World Mental Health Survey Initiative. The study examined both the prevalence and the risk factors for suicide across 17 countries, and is the largest, most representative examination of suicidal behavior ever conducted.

Harvard graduates often return to the University to let their professors know what they’ve been up to since they finished their degree.

Two clinical trials of the novel drug romiplostim (Nplate) show that it significantly improved platelet levels in patients with chronic immune thrombocytopenic purpura (ITP), a hematologic disorder that can cause uncontrolled…

A compound that naturally occurs in grapefruit and other citrus fruits may be able to block the secretion of hepatitis C virus (HCV) from infected cells, a process required to…

Human embryos that are discarded every day as medical waste from in vitro fertilization (IVF) clinics could be an important source of stem cells for research, according to a team…

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…

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…

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…

Patients of all racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic status are facing ever-increasing waits for care in emergency rooms, according to a study published online today  by the journal Health Affairs. The…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

You study the menu at a restaurant and decide to order the steak rather than the salmon. But when the waiter tells you about the lobster special, you decide lobster…

The foliage is green and youthful, but the twisted, gnarled trunks show the trees’ age. But that’s the point, of course.

Sometimes healthy cells commit suicide. In the 1970s, scientists showed that a type of programmed cell death called apoptosis plays a key role in development, and the 2002 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine recognized their work. As apoptotic cells degrade, they display standard characteristics, including irregular bulges in the membrane and nuclear fragmentation.

Dyslexia marked by poor reading fluency — slow and choppy reading — may be caused by disorganized, meandering tracts of nerve fibers in the brain, according to researchers at Children’s Hospital Boston and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC). Their study, using the latest imaging methods, gives researchers a glimpse of what may go wrong in the structure of some dyslexic readers’ brains that makes it difficult to integrate the information needed for rapid, “automatic” reading.

No other stem cell is more thoroughly understood than the blood, or hematopoietic, stem cell. These occasional and rare cells, scattered sparingly throughout the marrow and capable of replenishing an entire blood system, have been the driving force behind successful bone marrow transplants for decades. Scientists, for the most part, have seen this as the hematopoietic stem cell’s (HSC) singular role: to remain in the bone marrow indefinitely and to replenish blood and immune system cells only when called upon.

Some brain systems become less coordinated with age even in the absence of Alzheimer’s disease, according to a new study from Harvard University. The results help to explain why advanced age is often accompanied by a loss of mental agility, even in an otherwise healthy individual.

Treatment with an investigational drug that induces the release of growth hormone significantly improved the symptoms of HIV lipodystrophy, a condition involving redistribution of fat and other metabolic changes in patients receiving combination drug therapy for HIV infection.

Some brain systems become less coordinated with age even in the absence of Alzheimer’s disease, according to a new study from Harvard University. The results help to explain why advanced…