Recent research has revealed that all non-Africans living today retain a genetic trace—1-3 percent of the genome—of Neanderthal ancestry. And 40,000 years ago, human genomes may have contained twice as much Neanderthal DNA, according to a new study. David Reich, professor of genetics, is a senior author on the study.
Doctors at Brigham and Women’s Hospital are developing and testing a smartphone app that they hope will help patients and their doctors better manage chronic pain, and in so doing, help shrink the escalating medical costs associated with the condition. Robert Jamison, professor of anesthesia at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital, is quoted.
A gene once believed to contribute to human obesity has nothing to do with body weight, according to a new study. This new work overturns an accepted finding about the genetics of obesity. Steven McCarroll, assistant professor of genetics, and Joel Hirschhorn, the Concordia Professor of Pediatrics at Boston Children’s Hospital, are co-senior authors.
A profile of fourth-year medical student Brian Powers, who has published 20 academic articles, many of which have made their way into some of the world’s most prestigious medical journals.
Frederick P. Li, professor of medicine emeritus at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, who helped prove to a doubting medical establishment that heredity and genetics play a major role in some forms of cancer, died on June 12.
Summer is the season of food, food and more food. Is there a way to binge and still stay healthy? For answers, look far underground, say scientists, to the denizens of darkness: blind cavefish. Clifford Tabin, George Jacob and Jacqueline Hazel Leder Professor of Genetics and head of the Department of Genetics, is quoted.
Five undiagnosed patients are the focus of a documentary and new contest run by Boston Children’s Hospital. Aiming to advance the field of genomic medicine — using a patient’s gene information in the clinic — it offers a $25,000 prize to the research team that best solves the patients’ diagnostic mysteries. Isaac Kohane, chair of the Department of Biomedical Informatics and Lawrence J. Henderson Professor of Pediatrics at Boston Children’s Hospital, is quoted.
Wellness programs are getting a workout these days. Organizations are shifting the emphasis away from a preoccupation with blood pressure readings and body mass index scores to efforts that now address an employee’s emotional welfare, stress level and fulfillment on the job. Jeff Levin-Scherz, assistant professor of medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, is quoted.
The homeless sometimes can’t, sometimes won’t get to mainstream hospitals, so for nearly two decades, Ernesto Gonzalez, professor of dermatology at Massachusetts General Hospital, has taken his black bag to them at the Barbara McInnis House on Albany Street, where Boston Health Care for the Homeless Program (BHCHP) runs a treatment center.
