all Faculty of Arts and Sciences stories

Another step forward in cell reprogramming

404132862 — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 14:40:45 -0400

Imagine, if you can, a day within the next decade when a physician-scientist could remove a skin cell from your arm, and with a few chemicals turn that fully formed adult cell into a dish of stem cells genetically matched to you.

Hansjorg Wyss gives $125 million to create institute for biologically inspired engineering

404132862 — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 15:48:09 -0400

Engineer, entrepreneur, and philanthropist Hansjörg Wyss MBA ’65 has given Harvard University $125 million to create the Hansjörg Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering.

Investigators at the Wyss Institute (pronounced “Vees”) will strive to uncover the engineering principles that govern living things, and use this knowledge to develop technology solutions for the most pressing healthcare and environmental issues facing humanity. Wyss’ gift is the largest individual gift in the University’s history.

Global warming threatens his nation's existence, a president warns

404132862 — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 13:55:55 -0400

During a talk at Harvard, the leader of the South Pacific island nation of Kiribati laid out an extraordinary plan that would scatter his people through the nations of the world as rising sea levels submerge the islands they have called home for centuries.

Harvard Forest:

404132862 — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 15:14:06 -0400

Harvard may be rooted in Cambridge, but it has a lot more roots in the small north-central Massachusetts town of Petersham.

That's where you'll find the woods, streams, and fields of the Harvard Forest, a 3,500-acre research and teaching facility that's been part of the University for more than a century. Having been closely monitored since 1907 — and with a provenance dating to a Colonial farm established in the mid 1700s — the history of this tract is likely better-documented than that of any other forest in the United States.

Important new step toward producing stem cells for human treatment

404132862 — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 20:15:13 -0400

A team of Harvard Stem Cell Institute (HSCI) scientists has taken an important step toward producing induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells that are safe to transplant into patients to treat diseases.

Excitement over the ability of researchers to create this form of stem cell by inserting four genes into adults cells has thus far been tempered by the fact that the genes have been inserted using retroviruses, which have the potential to turn on cancer genes and trigger tumor growth.

Seeing what they hear, to better understand ourselves

404132862 — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 16:09:26 -0400

It was a long drive from St. Louis to Florida, but Darlene Ketten had finally made it. Standing in the warm surf of St. George Island, she watched with delight as tiny, colorful bean clams popped out of the sand and then quickly reburied themselves as the waves foamed around her calves.

“It was gorgeous, with incredible soft, white sand,” Ketten recalled. “In the surf were minute clams — pink, blue, orange and gold — popping out of the sand and then disappearing…. I dipped my hand in the water and tasted it.”

Three Harvard faculty members net MacArthur fellowships

404132862 — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 10:28:21 -0400

Three biologists — one current and two future faculty members at Harvard — have won MacArthur Foundation “genius” grants, $500,000 no-strings-attached awards intended to encourage creativity, originality, and innovation in a broad array of fields.

NIH names Harvard Pioneers, Innovators

404132862 — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 16:25:41 -0400

Harvard faculty members comprise almost 20 percent of the 47 scientists nationally whose promising and innovative work was today recognized with the announcement of two grant programs through the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

The grants, expected to total $138 million over five years for all recipients, recognize established researchers through the Pioneer Award and young scientists through the New Innovator Award.

The awards support potentially high-impact research whose approaches have the potential to transform biomedical and behavioral science.

ATLAS detector seeks to illuminate universe’s mysteries

404132862 — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 11:37:28 -0400

Scientists at Harvard and around the world held their breath earlier today, as colleagues switched on the most powerful particle accelerator ever built, the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, the particle physics laboratory in Geneva.

Efficiency of producing iPS cells markedly improved

404132862 — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 14:55:30 -0400

Some of the most challenging obstacles limiting the reprogramming of mature human cells into stem cells may not seem quite as daunting in the near future. Two independent research groups, one lead by Harvard Stem Cell Institute Principal Faculty member Konrad Hochedlinger, and another at the Whitehead Institute, are describing new tools that provide invaluable platforms for elucidating the molecular, genetic and biochemical mechanisms associated with reprogramming.

Harvard Catalyst is up and running

404132862 — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 13:42:01 -0400

The Harvard Catalyst, an unprecedented pan-University collaborative effort committed to harnessing the human, technological, and fiscal resources of Harvard and its academic healthcare centers (AHCs) to reduce the burden of human illness has launched a feature-rich website that focuses its collaborative efforts.

NHGRI/NIH awards team $6.5M to advance DNA sequencing using Nanopores

404132862 — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 13:27:03 -0400

The National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI), part of the National Institutes of Health
(NIH), awarded a $6.5 (over 4 years) grant to a team of Harvard University researchers to further develop electronic sequencing in nanopores. The grant is part of more than $20 million in total funding
given by NHGRI/NIH to spur innovative sequencing technologies inexpensive and efficient enough to sequence a person's DNA as a routine part of biomedical research and health care.

Samuel Kou appointed professor of statistics

404132862 — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 09:58:46 -0400

Samuel Kou, whose modeling of nanoscale processes within molecules has opened up important new frontiers at the intersection of statistics and chemistry, has been appointed professor of statistics in Harvard University's Faculty of Arts and Sciences, effective July 1, 2008.

Kou, 33, was previously John L. Loeb Associate Professor of the Natural Sciences at Harvard, where he has been on the faculty since 2001.

Jamaican lizards mark their territory with shows of strength at dusk and dawn

404132862 — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 14:40:48 -0400

What does ageless fitness guru Jack LaLanne have in common with a Jamaican lizard?

Like LaLanne, the lizards greet each day with vigorous push-ups. That's according to a new study showing that male Anolis lizards engage in impressive displays of reptilian strength - push-ups, head bobs, and threatening extension of a colorful neck flap called a dewlap -- to defend their territory at dawn and dusk.

The lizards are the first animals known to mark dawn and dusk through visual displays, rather than the much better known chirping, tweeting, and other sounding off by birds, frogs, geckos, and primates.

Harvard Stem Cell Institute researchers turn one form of adult mouse cell directly into another

404132862 — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 16:40:13 -0400

In a feat of biological prestidigitation likely to turn the field of regenerative medicine on its head, Harvard Stem Cell Institute (HSCI) co-director Doug Melton and post doctoral fellow Qiao "Joe" Zhou report having achieved what has long been a dream and ultimate goal of developmental biologists – directly turning one type of fully formed adult cell into another type of adult cell.