all David Scadden stories

Three Harvard teams to receive $9 million each in federal funding for stem cell research

404132862 — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 10:11:45 -0400

Three teams of Harvard Stem Cell Institute (HSCI) researchers are slated to receive $27 million over seven years in National Heart Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI) grants for the development of stem-cell based tools and treatments to understand and treat cardiovascular and blood disorders. The NHLBI Progenitor Cell Biology Consortium will consist of nine research hubs, each involving multidiscplinary teams from two academic medical centers.

Harvard researchers react to new embryonic stem cell guidelines

404132862 — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 16:06:49 -0400

Mechanism directing stem cells to their destination identified;

404132862 — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 14:00:02 -0400

Harvard Stem Cell Institute (HSCI) researchers have for the first time identified in mice a cellular mechanism that directs stem cells to their ultimate destination in the body.

Faculty approves undergraduate concentration in human developmental, regenerative biology

404132862 — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 17:51:26 -0400

Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences late today voted to approve a new undergraduate concentration, or major, in Human Development and Regenerative Biology.

One of the first of its kind in the nation, the new program will be available this fall to students starting with current freshman, the Class of 2012. The concentration will focus on human development, disease, and aging, and will provide “hands on” science education from the first semester.

HSCI's David Scadden in live chat on Washingtonpost.com

404132862 — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 15:19:03 -0400

Harvard scientists praise lifting of stem cell restrictions

50443248 — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 14:51:00 -0400

All across Cambridge and Boston, researchers gathered just before noon today in the laboratories that constitute the collaborative known to the world as the Harvard Stem Cell Institute (HSCI), waiting to hear President Barack Obama announce to the world: “Today, with the executive order I am about to sign, we will bring the change that so many scientists and researchers, doctors and innovators, patients and loved ones have hoped for, and fought for, these past eight years: We will lift the ban on federal funding for promising embryonic stem cell research."

Science, engineering programs advancing

404132862 — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 12:16:21 -0500

Harvard President Drew Faust today renewed the University’s commitment to the vision of advancing interdisciplinary, collaborative science in general, and the Department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology (SCRB), the Harvard Stem Cell Institute (HSCI), and the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering (WIBIE) in particular.

Stem Cell Research: The Quest Resumes

404132862 — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 19:04:43 -0500

"After eight years of political ostracism, stem-cell scientists like Harvard's Douglas Melton are coming back into the light — and making discoveries that may soon bring lifesaving breakthroughs.

Scientific inspiration can come from anywhere — a person, an event, even an experiment gone awry. But perhaps nothing can drive innovation more powerfully than the passion born of tragedy. Or, in Douglas Melton's case, near tragedy. The co-director of the Harvard Stem Cell Institute (HSCI) is one of the leading figures in the search for cures for presently incurable diseases, and his breakthrough work is challenging many long-held beliefs about the ways biology and human development work."

Stem Cell Summit hails bench progress, looks to bedside future

404132862 — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 11:31:13 -0400

New discoveries concerning cell reprogramming over the past year have boosted stem cell researchers in the lab and encouraged efforts to transfer test tube and lab animal advances to humans suffering degenerative diseases such as diabetes, Parkinson’s disease, and Lou Gehrig’s disease.

Leaders of the Harvard Stem Cell Institute (HSCI) and Harvard President Drew Faust hailed advances in the last year as significant steps in the drive to understand and one day treat these diseases, which afflict millions around the world.

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.

Cancer drug activates adult stem cells

404132862 — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 10:35:29 -0500

The use of a drug used in cancer treatment activates stem cells that differentiate into bone appears to cause regeneration of bone tissue and be may be a potential treatment strategy for osteoporosis, according to a report in the February 2008 Journal of Clinical Investigation.

Flier hails new, cooperative era in Harvard science

404132862 — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 14:02:11 -0500

Harvard Medical School Dean Jeffrey Flier Friday evening issued a call for new approaches to advance the fight against disease, embracing cross-institutional collaborations at Harvard as a way to bring new thinking to old problems.

Flier, the keynote speaker at the Fourth Annual Tony and Shelly Malkin Stem Cell Symposium at the Harvard Club of Boston, said he has spent a lot of time in his first months as Harvard Medical School Dean thinking about how and why the School does business. As he has gone through this process, Flier said, he’s given thought to who people mean when they speak of “we” at the Medical School.

Stem Cell Summit draws 500 participants

404132862 — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 12:44:43 -0400

Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick Wednesday (Oct. 3) called on those attending the second day of a Harvard Stem Cell Institute (HSCI)-sponsored Stem Cell Summit to support his proposed $1 billion life sciences initiative “so we can get partnering with you.”

While Massachusetts has a unique concentration of researchers, academic institutions, biotech companies, and investment in the life sciences, “we can’t just rest on our laurels,” Patrick said. “I ask you to make your voices heard,” the governor continued. “Make your interests known. When the bill comes out for hearings — show up.”

New department approved

50443248 — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 16:08:11 -0400

The Harvard Corporation has approved, with the support of the deans of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) and the Harvard Medical School (HMS), the establishment of a new Department of Developmental and Regenerative Biology, the first academic department in Harvard’s 371-year history to be based in more than one of the University’s Schools. The new department will bring together researchers from the Faculty of Arts and Sciences and Harvard Medical School.

HSCI/MGH researchers identify gene product involved in stem cell aging and death

Thu, 12 Jul 2007 12:20:44 -0400

A multi-institutional team of Harvard researchers may have advanced our understanding of physiological aging with a new study in which they greatly reduced the impact of aging on blood stem cells. A report on their findings appears in the latest edition of the journal Nature along with similar but independent findings from research teams at the universities of North Carolina and Michigan.

The Harvard team, led by David T. Scadden, has demonstrated that reducing the accumulation of the cyclin-dependent kinase inhibitor p16INK4a, a gene product previously noted to increase in aging cells, may reduce the physiological impact of aging on adult stem cells, and may improve the ability of aged tissues to repair themselves. Scadden is co-director of the Harvard Stem Cell Institute (HSCI) and director of the Center for Regenerative Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH).

The researchers found that reducing the accumulation of p16INK4a in haematopoietic stem cells (blood stem cells) reduces cell death as well as defects in the ability of the cells to repopulate.

"There are two things about this that are important," Scadden said. "It shows that specific properties of aging stem cells directly contribute to the reduced healing that occurs with aging; and it indicates that one might be able to modify a single gene product and improve the function of aging stem cells and repair of aging tissue - and that is very encouraging. This may mean that there are opportunities to target this gene product with medication and potentially decrease the impact of aging.

"However," Scadden noted, "p16INK4a is also known to suppress tumor formation, so a judicious balance must be struck between reduced p16INK4a when needed for repair and sufficient p16INK4a to prevent emergence of malignant stem cells."

The findings by the teams at Harvard, Michigan, and UNC indicate that they may have discovered a generalized mechanism by which various types of tissues have altered healing with age. Thus, discovering ways to suppress p16INK4a could potentially have an ameliorating effect on age-related cell death and repair of tissue damage throughout the body.

The Scadden team includes Viktor Janzen, Randolf Forkert, Heather E. Fleming, and Yoriko Saito, of HSCI and MGH; Michael T. Waring and David M. Dombkowski of MGH; Ronald A. DePinho of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School; and Norman E. Sharpless of the Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine.