all Work in Progress stories

Building a stellar time machine

50443248 — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 13:47:38 -0400

Harvard researchers are building a celestial time machine that lets astronomers look back at hundreds of thousands of objects in the Earth’s skies over the past century.

The effort aims to digitize 525,000 glass photographic plates taken at observing sites around the world between the 1880s and the 1980s. The collection, the largest such in the world, contains a treasure trove of largely unexamined data, according to Paine Professor of Practical Astronomy Jonathan Grindlay, who is leading the digitizing effort.

Search for new tuberculosis drugs outlined

50443248 — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 11:01:16 -0400

A new drug candidate that attacks the cell walls of tuberculosis bacteria offers a promising alternative in the fight against a disease that has been resurgent in the global age of AIDS, according to findings highlighted by a key researcher Friday (June 12) at the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT.

Video can help patients make end-of-life decisions

50443248 — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 13:06:31 -0400

Viewing a video showing a patient with advanced dementia interacting with family and caregivers may help elderly patients plan for end-of-life care, according to a study led by Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) researchers.

Acid-suppressive medicines increase pneumonia risk for hospital patients

50443248 — Wed, 27 May 2009 11:35:06 -0400

Ever since a class of drugs called proton pump inhibitors was introduced to the market in the late 1980s, the use of these acid-suppressive medications for heartburn, acid reflux, and other gastrointestinal symptoms has grown tremendously. The widespread use has extended to the inpatient hospital setting, where patients are often routinely given the medications as a way to prevent the development of stress ulcers.

Understanding materials to make microdevices

404132862 — Wed, 27 May 2009 10:51:38 -0400

In the 1990s, semiconductor companies began to incorporate a wider variety of materials into the construction of computer chips, selecting materials based on how they would perform electrically and not necessarily on how they would stand up to the rigors of the manufacturing process or continued use.

Spiral swimmers may prove micro workhorses

50443248 — Mon, 11 May 2009 11:47:25 -0400

Harvard researchers have created a new type of microscopic swimmer: a magnetized spiral that corkscrews through liquids and is able to deliver chemicals and push loads larger than itself.

Though other researchers have created similar devices in the past, Peer Fischer, a junior fellow at the Rowland Institute at Harvard, said the new nano-robot is the only swimmer that can be precisely controlled in solution.

Cancer chemotherapy: An unfolding story

50443248 — Wed, 06 May 2009 14:10:11 -0400

To launch his lecture on cancer chemotherapy, Luke Whitesell ’79, RI ’06 displayed an image of an origami crab: a double visual metaphor. The crab is the traditional symbol of cancer. And Whitesell, a senior research scientist at the Whitehead Institute, has focused on how the artful folding of proteins in cells may offer clues to more effective, less toxic treatments. His November 17 talk — part of the Radcliffe Institute’s Lectures in the Sciences series — richly conveyed what he called “the most interesting subject in the world: the drug treatment of cancer.”

HMS professor devises single test for cancers

50443248 — Sun, 19 Apr 2009 17:37:33 -0400

Imagine visiting a doctor’s office five years from now and, as a routine part of your annual physical, getting an accurate test that can tell whether you have cancer long before you have either symptoms or tumors detectable by other methods.

International conference thinks about sustainable cities

50443248 — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 15:39:24 -0400

What will the cities of the future look like?

Harvard’s Graduate School of Design (GSD) offered some ideas at a three-day international conference, “Ecological Urbanism: Alternative and Sustainable Cities of the Future,” April 3-5.

Waist size predictor of heart failure in men and women

50443248 — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 15:57:04 -0400

Adding to the growing evidence that a person’s waist size is an important indicator of heart health, a study led by investigators at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) has found that larger waist circumference is associated with increased risk of heart failure in middle-aged and older populations of men and women.

Simple bedside test improves diagnosis of chronic back pain

50443248 — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 15:07:59 -0400

A simple and inexpensive method of assessing pain, developed by Harvard researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), is better than currently used techniques for distinguishing neuropathic pain – pain caused by damage to the nervous system — from other types of chronic back pain. Being able to more precisely determine the underlying nature of the pain is essential to choosing the best treatment. The report appears in tomorrow's edition of the open-access journal PLoS Medicine.

Star quest knowledge provides new view of ourselves

404132862 — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 11:50:21 -0400

In a basement laboratory at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA), surrounded by instruments built to detect the universe’s distant secrets, sits a machine that will help us look not outward to the stars, but inward at our own bodies.

When genetics gets personal

404132862 — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 11:38:04 -0400

Just five years after the Human Genome Project announced it had decoded the first human DNA, the era of personal genetics is dawning, bringing with it not just the promise of targeted, personalized medicine and a new level of self-knowledge, but also a host of ethical, legal, and practical issues. A new project out of a Harvard Medical School genetics lab is trying to make sure we’re prepared to deal with the potential benefits and pitfalls arising from these issues.

Amy Wagers - focusing on stem cell biology

404132862 — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 09:45:39 -0400

Twenty minutes after her weekly lab meeting is scheduled to begin, Amy Wagers rushes into a conference room on the fourth floor of the Joslin Diabetes Center, where her lab team sits, chatting around a long oval table.

“Sorry I’m late,” she calls out, closing the door behind her. “Oh good, the food’s here!"

Grabbing half a sandwich and a pickle off a catered tray, she simultaneously grabs a seat and motions for her team to begin its presentations. Lights out.

In the darkened room, all eyes turn to the illuminated white screen. There, in all its monochromic splendor, glows an enlarged image of a blood-forming hematopoietic stem cell.

Finding ingenious design in nature

404132862 — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 11:42:56 -0500

“This,” Joanna Aizenberg says slyly, picking up a latticed tube from her desk in Pierce Hall, “is a glass house you can throw stones at.”

The tube, tapered to a close at one end and festooned with a cluster of curious white fibers at the tip, resembles an upturned dog’s tail. It is, in fact, the skeleton of a deep-sea sponge, she reveals, made entirely out of a natural glass. The tube acts as a kind of high-rise apartment building for shrimp that live symbiotically in the sponge’s tissue.