Since 2008, researchers have been monitoring the brains of subjects in a study known as DIAN (for Dominantly Inherited Alzheimer Network) who have mutations in any of three genes that cause Alzheimer’s to see how the disease develops before symptoms occur. Rudolph Tanzi, the Joseph P. and Rose F. Kennedy Professor of Child Neurology at Massachusetts General Hospital, is quoted.
A monkey escaped from its cage in late April at an HMS animal research facility and injured a second monkey while it roamed the room, according to a federal inspection report.
The severe shortage of viable organs for transplantation in the U.S. has led a transplant surgeon to propose harvesting kidneys from people who are not dead yet. Robert Truog, HMS professor of anaesthesia (pediatrics) at Boston Children’s Hospital, is quoted.
By delving into the components of protective nerve coatings that get damaged in multiple sclerosis, scientists have identified a handful of lipid molecules that appear to be attacked by an immune system run amok. Francisco Quintana, HMS assistant professor of neurology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, is quoted.
Nathaniel Asselin’s battle with body dysmorphic disorder ended when he took his life. His father walks on in his memory — and to raise awareness of the rare condition. A talk given by Michael Jenike, HMS professor of psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital, is mentioned.
Many cancer patients have learned that most doctors outside the oncology community never learned about the impact cancer treatment may have on the longer lifespan they fought to achieve. Larissa Nekhlyudov, HMS associate professor of population medicine, is the lead author of the study.
Advances in understanding cancer at the molecular level mean doctors can better select the drugs that will most help individual patients. Acompany in Cambridge, MA, that was co-founded by geneticists from HMS, is mentioned.
In a new study of U.S. preteen and teen girls, daily exercise was strongly linked to weight and obesity in white girls but not black girls. Alison Field, HMS associate professor of pediatrics at Boston Children’s Hospital, is quoted.
In a large national study, researchers found that more than half the older adults who died had gone to an emergency room during the last month of their lives, and the E.R. visit had led most of them straight to a hospital bed.
After a decade of stalled progress, a flurry of new studies is sparking hope in the fight against the deadly skin cancer melanoma. Studies by Keith T. Flaherty, HMS associate professor of medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital; F. Stephen Hodi, HMS associate professor of medicine at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute; and David McDermott, director of the biologic therapy program at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, are featured.
John A. Parrish, the Edward Wigglesworth Professor of Dermatology, Emeritus, at Massachusetts General Hospital, participated in a Q&A about his new a book called “Autopsy of War,” which details the traumatic legacy of his service in a military field hospital in Vietnam.
