The same molecules that endow naked mole rats with springy, wrinkled skin also seem to prevent the homely rodents from contracting cancer. New research identifies a sugary cellular secretion that stops the spread of would-be tumors. Vadim Gladyshev, HMS professor of medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, is quoted.
Large independent doctor practices that focus on primary care tend to spend less money and are more likely to meet guidelines for Americans on Medicare than smaller groups, according to a new study. J. Michael McWilliams, HMS assistant professor of health care policy, led the research.
HMS researchers are leading a new checklist project to improve end-of-life care. Atul Gawande, HMS professor of surgery at Brigham and Women’s Hospital; Rachelle Bernacki, HMS instructor in medicine at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute; and Susan Block, HMS professor of psychiatry at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, are leading the study. William Berry, HMS research fellow in anesthesia at Massachusetts General Hospital, is helping to launch the safe-surgery checklist in South Carolina hospitals.
Doctors have long known that the sooner a stroke is treated, the better the outcome. But now a new study finds just how much each minute counts. Lee Schwamm, HMS professor of neurology at Massachusetts General Hospital, is a co-author of the study.
Biologist Jessica U. Meir has devoted her life to studying animals that thrive in Earth’s most extreme environments, hoping to unlock the secrets of high-flying geese that soar over Mount Everest and emperor penguins that dive thousands of feet under the Antarctic ice. But all the while, the 35-year-old Meir has hoped, too, that she would have a chance to explore the most extreme environment of them all: outer space. Meir is an assistant professor of anesthesia at HMS and Massachusetts General Hospital.
Jeffrey S. Flier, dean of the faculty of medicine at Harvard University, participated in a recent discussion in The Wall Street Journal’s The Experts section about how physicians are paid.
There’s more evidence that routine colonoscopy confers life-extending benefits. A new study that included almost 1,100 patients found that those whose cancer was spotted by colonoscopy tended to have an earlier stage of disease at the time of their diagnosis, as well as better survival. Ramzi Amri, HMS research associate in surgery at Massachusetts General Hospital, led the study.
A new project called BioMosaic is building a more comprehensive picture of foreign-borne disease threats in the United States, by merging three separate data tools into a single app for guiding decisions at the time of an outbreak. HealthMap, a mapping tool that tracks on-the-ground disease reports developed by John Brownstein, HMS associate professor of pediatrics at Boston Children’s Hospital, is highlighted.
Peter Sorger, the Krayer professor of systems pharmacology at HMS and head of the new Harvard Program in Therapeutic Science, will lead the new HMS program that aims to use multidisciplinary approaches from systems biology to create a more rational basis for drug development. Joseph Loscalzo, the Hersey Professor of the Theory and Practice of Physic and chair of the Department of Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, is also quoted.
