HarvardScience (BREAKING_NEWS)

Eli and Edythe L. Broad endow the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT with additional $400 million

404132862 — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 14:12:08 -0400

Los Angeles-based philanthropists Eli and Edythe Broad today declared the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT an unprecedented success as an experiment in science and philanthropy, and announced that they have increased their total gift to the Broad by $400 million to $600 million. The $400 million will be an endowment to convert the institute — which was originally launched as a 10-year “venture” experiment — into a permanent biomedical research organization aimed at transforming medicine.

Broad Institute awarded $86 million NIH grant

404132862 — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 11:15:02 -0400

Researchers at the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT have been chosen to receive a six-year, $86M grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to identify and develop molecular tools known as “small molecules," which can probe the proteins, signaling pathways and cellular processes that are crucial to human health and disease.

Value of direct-to-consumer drug advertising oversold, study finds

404132862 — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 13:00:58 -0400

Direct-to-consumer advertising may not be giving big pharma such a big bang for their five billion bucks after all. Despite the billions spent on bringing drug marketing campaigns straight into patients’ living rooms, such strategies have a modest effect at best—and in some cases, no effect at all.

“People tend to think that if direct-to-consumer advertising wasn’t effective, pharma wouldn’t be doing it,” says Harvard Medical School professor Stephen Soumerai, principal investigator on the study. “But as it turns out, decisions to market directly to consumers is based on scant data.”

Jamaican lizards mark their territory with shows of strength at dusk and dawn

404132862 — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 14:40:48 -0400

What does ageless fitness guru Jack LaLanne have in common with a Jamaican lizard?

Like LaLanne, the lizards greet each day with vigorous push-ups. That's according to a new study showing that male Anolis lizards engage in impressive displays of reptilian strength - push-ups, head bobs, and threatening extension of a colorful neck flap called a dewlap -- to defend their territory at dawn and dusk.

The lizards are the first animals known to mark dawn and dusk through visual displays, rather than the much better known chirping, tweeting, and other sounding off by birds, frogs, geckos, and primates.

Harvard Stem Cell Institute researchers turn one form of adult mouse cell directly into another

404132862 — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 16:40:13 -0400

In a feat of biological prestidigitation likely to turn the field of regenerative medicine on its head, Harvard Stem Cell Institute (HSCI) co-director Doug Melton and post doctoral fellow Qiao "Joe" Zhou report having achieved what has long been a dream and ultimate goal of developmental biologists – directly turning one type of fully formed adult cell into another type of adult cell.

Bone marrow stem cells may help control inflammatory bowel disease

404132862 — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 16:37:21 -0400

Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and Harvard Medical School investigators have found that infusions of a particular bone marrow stem cell appeared to protect gastrointestinal tissue from autoimmune attack in a mouse model. In their report published in the journal Stem Cells, the team from the MGH Center for Engineering in Medicine report that mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs), known to control several immune system activities, allowed the regeneration of the gastrointestinal lining in mice with a genetic mutation leading

Five faculty members named young innovators by Technology Review

404132862 — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 12:24:12 -0400

Work on flying robots, surgical tape modeled on gecko feet, energy tips gleaned from plants, new ways to grow stem cells, and dramatically smaller medical imaging equipment has landed five Harvard faculty members on a list of the world’s top 35 young innovators.

The annual list is compiled by Technology Review magazine and features what the editors and a panel of judges see as the 35 top innovators in business and technology who are under the age of 35.

Researchers find sleep selectively preserves emotional memories

404132862 — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 20:45:07 -0400

As poets, songwriters and authors have described, our memories range from misty water-colored recollections to vividly detailed images of the times of our lives.

Now, a study led by Harvard researchers at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) and Boston College offers new insights into the specific components of emotional memories, suggesting that sleep plays a key role in determining what we remember – and what we forget.

Daley and colleagues create 20 disease-specific stem cell lines

404132862 — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 10:48:17 -0400

Harvard Stem Cell Institute researcher George Q.

A rare glimpse of schizophrenia's genetic roots

404132862 — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 20:19:40 -0400

The delusions and hallucinations of schizophrenia can be devastating for the 1% of the population struck by the disease. The condition clearly has a genetic component, evidenced by its tendency to run in families. However, the search for specific genes or chromosomal regions involved has led to few reproducible findings.

Julius B. Richmond, giant in public health and pediatrics

404132862 — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 16:03:02 -0400

Julius B. Richmond, a seminal figure in the history of American public health and pediatrics, and the first national director of the Head Start program, who held professorial positions at three Harvard Schools, died Sunday at his home in Chestnut Hill, MA. He was 91.

As U. S. Surgeon General in the Carter Administration, Dr. Richmond issued the momentous 1979 report Smoking and Health. As Surgeon General he also set targets for the health of the American public with the Healthy People report.

Neurons created from skin cells of elderly patients with ALS

404132862 — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 12:02:00 -0400

Less than 27 months after announcing that he had institutional permission to attempt the creation of patient and disease-specific stem cell lines, Harvard Stem Cell Institute (HSCI) Principal Faculty member Kevin Eggan today proclaimed the effort a success - though politically imposed restrictions and read more

Scientists demonstrate highly directional semiconductor lasers

404132862 — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 13:42:02 -0400

Applied scientists at Harvard collaborating with researchers at Hamamatsu Photonics in Hamamatsu City, Japan, have demonstrated, for the first time, highly directional semiconductor lasers with a much smaller beam divergence than conventional ones. The innovation opens the door to a wide range of applications in photonics and communications. Harvard University has also filed a broad patent on the invention.

A new era in search for ‘sister Earths’?

404132862 — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 19:27:28 -0400

Research presented at a recent astronomical conference is being hailed as ushering in a new era in the search for Earth-like planets by showing that they are more numerous than previously thought and that scientists can now analyze their atmospheres for elements that might be conducive to life.

GlaxoSmithKline and Harvard Stem Cell Institute announce major collaboration agreement

404132862 — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 15:00:05 -0400

GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) and the Harvard Stem Cell Institute (HSCI) today announced that they have entered into a five-year, $25 million-plus collaborative agreement to build a unique alliance in stem cell science to hasten the development of treatments and cures for a range of diseases.

Tobacco industry used cigarette menthol to recruit new adolescents and young adult smokers

404132862 — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 15:59:26 -0400

Researchers at Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) have found that tobacco companies have deliberately adjusted menthol levels in cigarettes to recruit and addict young smokers by creating a milder experience for the first-time smoker.

Menthol masks the harshness and irritation of cigarettes, allowing delivery of an effective dose of nicotine, the addictive chemical in cigarettes. These milder products were then marketed to the youngest potential consumers.

Middle Eastern families yield intriguing clues to autism

404132862 — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 12:27:58 -0400

Research involving large Middle Eastern families, sophisticated genetic analysis and groundbreaking neuroscience has implicated a half-dozen new genes in autism. More importantly, it strongly supports the emerging idea that autism stems from disruptions in the brain’s ability to form new connections in response to experience – consistent with autism’s onset during the first year of life, when many of these connections are normally made.

Stem cells used to treat muscular dystrophy in mice

404132862 — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 10:45:11 -0400

Harvard Stem Cell Institute researchers at the Joslin Diabetes Center have for the first time demonstrated that transplanted muscle stem cells can both improve muscle function in mice with a form of muscular dystrophy and replenish the stem cell population for use in the repair of future muscle injuries.

Presidential election will bring change in federal stem cell policy

404132862 — Wed, 21 May 2008 15:21:10 -0400

Embryonic stem cell research will likely have a more sympathetic ear in the White House after November’s presidential election, but a panel of speakers said last night that an era of tight budgets may limit the practical changes researchers see.

Warren Wollschlager, founding chair of the Interstate Alliance on Stem Cell Research and chief of the Office of Research and Development in the Connecticut Department of Public Health, cautioned that one danger facing stem cell research in a new presidential administration is that support from states and other sources will decline with the assumption that the federal government will begin funding research it has been reluctant to under President George W. Bush.

Study identifies food-related clock in the brain

yvette — Mon, 19 May 2008 15:46:27 -0400

In investigating the intricacies of the body’s biological rhythms, scientists at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) have discovered the existence of a “food-related clock” which can supersede the “light-based” master clock that serves as the body’s primary timekeeper.

The findings, which appear in the May 23 issue of the journal Science, help explain how animals adapt their circadian rhythms in order to avoid starvation, and suggest that by adjusting eating schedules, humans too can better cope with changes in time zones and nighttime schedules that leave them feeling groggy and jet-lagged.