Artist’s representation of how the silver nanoparticles are made. Animation: Rick Groleau Synthetic biologists at Harvard Medical School and Harvard’s Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering have devised a new, more environmentally sustainable way to produce antimicrobial silver nanoparticles at the mesoscale using biological rather than inorganic chemical methods.
The early years of medical training can be stressful, even traumatic at times, as students and residents directly confront the mortality of their patients and the enormity of their responsibility as physicians. Students report feeling overwhelmed, professors note that exceptional students feel unsure of themselves, and residency managers note high levels of burnout and depression.
Nearly 15 percent of opioid-naïve patients hospitalized under Medicare are discharged with a new prescription for opioids, according to a study published today in JAMA Internal Medicine. Among those patients who received a prescription, 40 percent were still taking opioids 90 days after discharge. The rate of prescription varied almost twofold between hospitals, with some hospitals discharging as many as 20 percent of patients with a prescription for opioids.
Male fruit flies with high levels of dopamine in P1 neurons readily court female flies, but males whose dopamine has dropped after a few matings lose interest. Video: Stephen Zhang Male fruit flies have a mating drive, and its rise and fall is controlled by dopamine levels in one area of the brain, a team of Harvard Medical School neurobiologists has found.
Although more than five decades have passed since the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was enacted, income inequity remains. Black workers in the U.S. continue to earn less than white workers. And according to a new study by researchers at Harvard Medical School and the University of Southern California, this inequity also holds true for black and white male physicians, despite the fact that they have the same high levels of education and do the same work.
Mammals have an exquisitely tuned sensory system that tells them whether they are smelling an orange or a rose. Like keys on a piano keyboard, each component of an odor blend strikes only one chord of olfactory neuron activation. These chords are combined to form a melody that is “heard” in the brain as distinctly citrusy or sweet and flowery.
After eating a meal, you can thank your vagus nerve for sensing and signaling that feeling of fullness to your brain. That same nerve also detects nutrients and controls digestion. The vagus has long been recognized as a remarkable internal sensory system, regulating breathing and heart rate among other functions. Yet how it receives the information it uses to perform these tasks has been less well-known.
Life sometimes takes an unexpected turn, whether you’re a scientist or a nematode. Take, for example, the curveball thrown to graduate student Candice Yip when she set out to study nerve growth in the head of Caenorhabditis elegans and instead discovered how an abnormal number of sensory neurons share space throughout the tiny worm’s body.
Harvard Medical School researchers Stirling Churchman and Mary Couvillion describe the “elegant synchronization” they discovered between the nuclear and mitochondrial genomes in yeast. Video: Rick Groleau and Stephanie Dutchen Our cells contain two different genomes: one in the cell nucleus and another in the mitochondria. Each has its own distinct machinery and evolutionary origin.
A virtual tour through the pore. Animation: James Chou Researchers have determined the structure of part of the tiny passageways that allow calcium ions to enter mitochondria and kick off cellular energy production. The findings, reported May 2 in Nature, promise to help researchers better understand how the channel, known as the mitochondrial calcium uniporter, works so speedily and precisely and what happens when it breaks—a question of growing interest since mutations in the uniporter have recently been linked to intermittent fatigue and lethargy.
Recently developed treatments that cure hepatitis C virus (HCV) will create new opportunities for people with other liver diseases to receive transplanted livers. Only one-third of Americans who need liver transplants receive them and shortages are expected to rise as the transplant waiting list continues to grow even as the supply of organs remains flat.
Harvard Medical School scientists have developed an improved method for quantifying how sensitive cells are to cancer drugs. The approach works by zeroing in on an important characteristic that current methods do not take into account: the varying rates at which cells divide. The research team, led by Peter Sorger, the Otto Krayer Professor of Systems Pharmacology at HMS and head of the Harvard Program in Therapeutic Science, published its findings May 2 in Nature Methods.
Harvard Medical School scientists have found a compound that in laboratory dishes blocks the dengue virus in two ways, raising hopes for a future drug whose dual activity could suppress the otherwise likely emergence of drug resistance. The HMS team, led by Priscilla Yang, an HMS associate professor of microbiology and immunobiology, reported its findings April 21 in Cell Chemical Biology.
Knowing the three-dimensional structures of different kinds of proteins, RNA molecules and other building blocks of the body is essential for understanding how those molecules work, what goes wrong in disease and how abnormalities might be fixed. Unfortunately, it can take years and a lot of money to determine structure using the standard experimental methods of X-ray crystallography or nuclear magnetic resonance.
HMS graduate student and first author Hayden Schmidt describes the strange characteristics of the structure of the sigma-1 receptor, which has been linked to neurodegenerative diseases. Video: Stephanie Dutchen Sigma-1 isn’t genetically related to any other protein in the human body. It’s the adopted child of the opioid receptor family, preferring mirror image versions of the drugs that bind to “true” opioid receptors.
An outbreak of multidrug resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) in Papua New Guinea may well become a replay of the disastrously delayed response to the West African Ebola pandemic, says Jennifer Furin, Harvard Medical School lecturer on global health and social medicine, in a commentary she co-authored with Helen Cox, senior lecturer in the Division of Medical Microbiology at the University of Cape Town, South Africa.
Harvard Medical School graduate student Thomas Graham explains the techniques he used to peer into how DNA double-strand breaks are repaired. Video: Stephanie Dutchen Dozens of times per day in each of the trillions of dividing cells in our bodies, the double strands that form our DNA may break and need to be fixed. Harvard Medical School scientists have now devised a way to watch how these essential repairs get made in real time and at previously unattainable resolution, allowing them to discover individual steps in the repair process and identify which proteins are involved in each.
Our brains are marvels of connectivity, packed with cells that continually communicate with one another. This communication occurs across synapses, the transit points where chemicals called neurotransmitters leap from one neuron to another, allowing us to think, to learn and to remember. Researchers have known that these synapses often need a boost to send information across neuronal divides.
Video: Rick Groleau As doctors and researchers explore the effectiveness of treating cancer patients with combinations of chemotherapy drugs, their attention has largely been focused on how much of each drug to give. A new study has found that achieving best results may also require looking into how much time should pass between delivering one drug and the next.
When a diamond miner named Sahr arrived at the Ebola treatment unit in Kenema, Sierra Leone, in December 2014, he saw red fences surrounding the area where people with suspected and confirmed cases of the disease were to be treated and he panicked. The colorful barricades reminded him of the horror he experienced in 1996 as a child soldier in Sierra Leone’s civil war, when rebel fighters attached red cloths to their guns during live battles.
Co-senior author Hari Arthanari describes how he and his colleagues re-sensitized multidrug-resistant pathogenic yeast to antifungal treatment by finding a compound that prevents two proteins from interacting with each other. Video: Stephanie Dutchen An international team led by researchers at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital has devised a new way to approach the problem of multidrug-resistant fungal infections that can be life-threatening to people with weakened immune systems.
Each of our cells has a time to die. Programmed cell death, or apoptosis, helps keep our bodies healthy by ensuring that excess or potentially dangerous cells self-destruct. One way cells know when to pull the plug is through signals received by so-called death receptors that stud cells’ surfaces. Researchers studying a death receptor called Fas have now found that for immune cells to hear the death knell, a largely overlooked portion of the receptor must coil into an intricate three-part formation.
People who are diagnosed with mental health conditions did not see improvements in coordination and quality of care as hoped but did not experience large cuts in access as some had feared under an early alternative payment model designed to encourage coordinated health care, according to a team led by researchers from Harvard Medical School and Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
Using a new form of high-resolution laser mass spectrometry, researchers scanning the surface of fruit flies discovered a previously unidentified pheromone "“ CH503 "“ that contributes to the anti-aphrodisiac effects observed in female fruit flies after copulation.
Using the zebrafish as an animal model, researchers have discovered that the body uses hydrogen peroxide to sound the alarm when a tissue has been injured. As a direct result of this hydrogen-peroxide red alert, white blood cells come to the aid of the wounded site.
Cancer cells rely on normal, healthy genes as much as they rely on mutated genes. Using a technique called RNA interference, researchers dialed down the production of thousands of normal proteins to determine which were required for cancer cells to survive. They found that cancer cells growing in a dish rely heavily on many normal proteins to maintain their deviant state. When some of these protein levels drop, cancer cells die, but normal cells often survive.
A study looking at 1,517 patients with metastatic lung cancer found that approximately half of these patients did not discuss hospice care with their physician within 4 to 7 months after diagnosis. Blacks and Hispanics were significantly less likely to discuss hospice with their physician than whites and Asians.
A study examining health data for more than 6,000 adults over an eight-year period found that disparities in important health outcomes by race, ethnicity and education were substantially reduced after these adults gained universal health coverage through the Medicare program.
Researchers have discovered that the genetic identity of a tumor cell is an incomplete predictor for how it will respond to certain treatments. In the case of one particular new and highly touted cancer treatment, genetically identical cancer cells responded differently. These variations resulted from random cell-to-cell differences, such as how many protein copies each cell had at the time of treatment. What's more, these non-genetic characteristics were passed on to subsequent generations of cells, establishing a transient heritability.
An ongoing study of pregnant women and their babies has found that rapid weight gain during the first six months of life may place a child at risk for obesity by age 3. Researchers studied 559 children, measuring both weight and body length at birth, 6 months, and 3 years. They found that sudden gains throughout early infancy influenced later obesity more so than weight at birth.
Pregnant women and new mothers who have diabetes have nearly double the chances of experiencing postpartum depression compared to those without diabetes. Researchers analyzed data from over 11,000 low income mothers in New Jersey. Approximately 1 in 10 of these women who had diabetes developed depression in the year following delivery.
A study looking at over 21,000 patients from 11 health centers finds that patients who receive mailed reminders for scheduling colorectal cancer screenings are more likely to comply than those who don't. Forty-four percent of patients who received a reminder in the mail were screened, versus 38 percent who did not"”an effect that increased with age. However, electronic reminders targeting physicians yielded no significant increase.
A topical treatment disables key proteins necessary for the herpesvirus to infect and thrive in the host. Using a laboratory strategy called RNA interference, or RNAi, the treatment cripples the virus in a molecular two-punch knockout, simultaneously disabling its ability to replicate, as well as the host cell's ability to take up the virus. The research, conducted in mice, demonstrated that the treatment is effective when applied anywhere from one week before infection to a few hours after virus exposure.
Researchers identify mechanisms behind biofilm formations, with implications for developing new antibiotics.
Modern humans left Africa over 60,000 years ago in a migration that many believe was responsible for nearly all of the human population that exist outside Africa today.
A new study illuminates an incurable eye disease that afflicts approximately 100,000 Americans. Your retina contains two types of cells that send signals when they detect light"”rods and cones. In patients with Retinitis Pigmentosa, first the rods, then the cones, die, leading to blindness. While most cases of the disease are due to mutations in rod-specific genes, cones don't escape death. New data suggest that the cones die because they are starving.
Happiness spreads through social networks like an emotional contagion, according to a study that looked at nearly 5,000 individuals over a period of 20 years. When an individual becomes happy, the network effect can be measured up to three degrees. One person's happiness triggers a chain reaction that benefits not only his friends, but his friends' friends, and his friends' friends' friends. The effect lasts for up to one year. Conversely, sadness does not spread through social networks as robustly as happiness.
Researchers have uncovered what may be a universal cause of aging, one that applies to both single cell organisms such as yeast and multicellular organisms, including mammals. This is the first time that such an evolutionarily conserved aging mechanism has been identified between such diverse organisms. The mechanism probably dates back more than one billion years. The study shows how DNA damage eventually leads to a breakdown in the cell's ability to properly regulate which genes are switched on and off in particular settings.
Use of electronic health records (EHRs) may help reduce paid malpractice settlements for physicians.
Influenza vaccination rates are still far too low for adolescents who suffer from asthma and other illnesses that predispose them to complications from the flu.
Researchers have developed a simple method for making a certain class of adult stem cells more therapeutically effective. By attaching a molecule called SLeX to the surface of human cells extracted from bone marrow, researchers have altered how the cells travel through vessels. This might enable the cells to more effectively reach sites of injury and replace damaged tissue.
Scientists have developed a new self-assembling hydrogel drug delivery system that is biocompatible, efficient at drug release, and easy to tailor. Importantly, these structures can deliver clinically approved drugs in high concentrations without requiring carriers for the drug or generating toxic components, a problem with hydrogel systems until now.
Researchers have, for the first time, found a mechanism for the rapid growth of the benign blood vessel tumor known as infantile hemangiomas, the most common tumor found in children. The findings implicate gene mutations that facilitate the abnormal activity of a hormone called VEGF, and suggest that anti-VEGF therapies--already approved for other conditions--may be an effective treatment.
Researchers often use the technique of RNA interference (RNAi) to identify genes involved in particular biological processes by knocking them down, one at a time, and observing the result. But this approach fails to capture some key players because many genes are redundant. Thus, cells can mask their distress when they lose a single gene by turning to fail-safes with the same function. A team has now overcome this obstacle, using RNAi to systematically knock down pairs of genes in fruit fly cells.
Asthmatic children whose parents have high expectations for their ability to function normally are less likely to have symptoms than other children dealing with the condition.
There's far more to a pine beetle's back than a hard black shell. Researchers have found that these tiny creatures"”responsible for rampant and widespread forest destruction"”carry on their backs battling species of fungi, plus a powerful antibiotic molecule that can destroy pathogenic fungi"”something that no current medications have achieved.
Over the last decade, private equity investors have increasingly purchased publicly traded nursing home chains. Although recent ownership trends raise important oversight questions, these transactions have not adversely affected the quality of care to date.
Higher prenatal fish consumption leads to better physical and cognitive development in infants, according to a study of mothers and infants from Denmark. Longer breastfeeding was also independently beneficial.
In the first-ever controlled study measuring the effectiveness of pharmaceutical direct-to-consumer advertising (DTCA), researchers found only a modest effect on drug sales. In some cases, DTCA had no effect at all.
Using a novel method to deliver small molecules called siRNAs into T cells, researchers dramatically suppressed HIV in the first-ever animal model that mirrors progression of the disease in humans. The siRNAs knocked down three key genes and kept the infection from spreading in mice containing human immune cells infected with the virus.
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