Harvard
In the process of figuring out why an anti-cancer drug is effective in treating patients with a rare blood disorder known as hypereosinophilic syndrome, or HES, researchers at Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH) and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute have shown that the condition may in fact be a form of cancer.
The brains of premature infants are smaller than those of full-term babies, even when measured at the same developmental stage after birth, according to recent studies of brain images at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Woman's Hospital.
A number of recent studies have associated educational disadvantages with low birth weight, a hallmark of premature delivery. This deficiency continues into adulthood.
One surprising report that came out in 2000 showed that newborns weighing less than 5.5 pounds are nearly four times more likely to drop out of high school by age 19 than siblings born in the normal weight range. The study did not examine physiological differences.
People who eat breakfast are significantly less likely to be obese and diabetic than those who usually don't, researchers reported today at the American Heart Association's 43rd Annual Conference on Cardiovascular Disease Epidemiology and Prevention. In their study, researchers found that obesity and insulin resistance syndrome rates were 35 percent to 50 percent lower among people who ate breakfast every day compared to those who frequently skipped it. "Our results suggest that breakfast may really be the most important meal of the day," says Mark A. Pereira, Ph.D., a research associate at Children's Hospital in Boston and assistant professor at Harvard Medical School. "It appears that breakfast may play an important role in reducing the risk of type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease."
Eating fast food and watching TV add up to a high risk for obesity and diabetes, according to a study reported today at the American Heart Association's 43rd Annual Conference on Cardiovascular Disease Epidemiology and Prevention. "Fast food consumption in this country has increased dramatically," says Mark Pereira, Ph.D., assistant professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School and Children's Hospital in Boston. "The association between eating fast food and the incidence of obesity and abnormal glucose control has not been thoroughly examined before."
A rare case of familial heart failure has shown that a loss of calcium regulation in heart cells may directly cause this hereditary form of the disease. The researchers who studied the case, from the Harvard Medical School lab of Christine Seidman, professor of medicine, and Jonathan Seidman, the Bugher Foundation professor of genetics, developed transgenic mice for their work that now offer a model for further investigation of heart failure and calcium signaling. The study, led by research fellow Joachim Schmitt and published in the Feb. 28 Science, suggests a specific protein target for future heart disease therapies.
Scientists hunting for genes responsible for acute lymphoblastic leukemia have a new compass: a system that uses powerful genetic techniques in a zebrafish model. Researchers report they have created a zebrafish model that will help scientists pinpoint genes that accelerate or delay the spread of T cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), a disease responsible for 400 deaths - about half of them, children - in the United States each year. The model may also provide a faster, more direct way of testing novel drugs against the disease.
Researchers at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute have made a discovery that could help solve a mystery in cancer biology: how a sunburn acquired during a childhood day at the beach can develop into a deadly tumor decades later. The scientists report in the Feb. 4 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that the sun's damaging ultraviolet (UV) rays target a series of biochemical signals inside the young skin cell, impairing the cell's ability to control its proliferation. The paper currently is available on the journal's web site.
Scientists have found that much of the widespread damage that the rare genetic disease ataxia telangiectasia, or AT, wreaks on the body results from the progressive shortening of telomeres, the structures that cap the ends of a cell's chromosomes. In genetically altered mice, the researchers found that the shortening of telomeres led to a "crisis" that disrupted chromosomes "like a hand grenade thrown into the cell," as one scientist put it. The resulting cellular chaos was manifested throughout the rodents' bodies by the loss of reparative stem cells that different organs normally have in reserve, producing symptoms of premature aging such as hair loss and slow wound healing, and early death.
A multi-year physician survey on career fulfillment showed significant variation in satisfaction levels across local health care markets, and it found that nationally, 18 percent of physicians were somewhat or very dissatisfied, according to a study by researchers at Harvard Medical School and the Center for Studying Health System Change (HSC) that appears in the Jan. 22 Journal of the American Medical Association. Overall, the study shows that physician career satisfaction levels were relatively consistent from year to year, and a clear majority of physicians nationally are satisfied with their careers.
Multidrug-resistant tuberculosis no longer must be considered a death sentence for infected individuals living in resource-poor nations, according to a study by a consortium of researchers led by Harvard Medical School's Program in Infectious Disease and Social Change. The study, which appears in this week's New England Journal of Medicine, provides the first hard evidence that outpatient community care in poor, urban shantytowns can work for this most difficult to treat form of tuberculosis. The multidrug-resistant tuberculosis treatment model could ultimately help save hundreds of thousands of lives worldwide.
Researchers at Harvard say they have overcome a preliminary, yet critical, hurdle in the push to develop antibiotics against drug-resistant bacterial strains. Most attempts have been plagued by a lack of molecular tools for manipulating--and ultimately improving -- the structure of naturally occurring antibiotics. The researchers report that they harnessed two enzymes, which work by adding sugars to a central molecular core, and used them to create new versions of two potent antibiotics, vancomycin and teicoplanin.
The Supreme Court decision that a genetically modified mouse cannot be patented in Canada may have severe consequences for biotechnology researchers in this country, say U of T experts. In a 5-4 ruling Dec. 5, the court determined that the so-called Harvard Mouse could not be patented as an invention according to current Canadian law. The mouse, developed at Harvard University during the 1980s to have a genetic predisposition to cancer, is already patented in several other countries. The majority decision, written by Justice Michel Bastarache, said that the current Patent Act provides no guidance for the patenting of "higher life forms."
Researchers have developed an automated system that can swiftly map capillaries in a live tumor. What used to take days of manually tracing the vessels, now takes two minutes. The diagnostic tool, in use at Harvard Medical School and at Northeastern University, is a boon to oncologists who aim to understand how blood vessels form in tumors.
A report of an individual infected with a second strain of HIV despite effective drug treatment following the first infection has researchers concerned. "For the first time, we've shown it is possible for an individual to become infected with two closely related strains of HIV," says Bruce D. Walker, M.D., a researcher at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School. The findings underscore the challenges vaccine developers face in creating a broadly effective vaccine against HIV. The first HIV vaccines may not prevent infection altogether, but rather may prevent HIV from causing disease by limiting the virus' ability to reproduce, explains Dr. Walker. This case shows that a hypothetical vaccine against one strain of HIV may not necessarily protect the vaccinee against other, closely related strains.
Elderly heart attack patients who visit a cardiologist's office in the months after leaving the hospital are less likely to die within two years than patients who visit only their primary care doctor, a study by Harvard Medical School researchers finds. And patients who visit both a cardiologist and a primary care doctor have even better outcomes than those who visit only a cardiologist.
