Since the early 1980s, HSPH researchers have made fundamental discoveries about HIV/AIDS and worked on the frontlines of the disease. In 1983, Max Essex provided key evidence that the infection is caused by a retrovirus; two years later, he co-discovered the gp-120 surface protein, which is now used worldwide for blood screening. In 1986, Essex, … Continue reading “BPH Faculty Members Featured in World AIDS Day 2012 Events”
Brendan Manning, associate professor of genetics and complex diseases, received a 2012 Senior Scholar in Aging Award from The Ellison Medical Foundation for his research on determining the genetic and metabolic relationship between the major longevity pathways in mammals. With the Sr. Scholar Awards, The Ellison Medical Foundation aims “to stimulate new research that has … Continue reading “BPH Faculty Members Honored”
Funding at Risk for Program That Increases Availability, Lowers Costs for Most Effective Drugs A two-year-old pilot program that aims to protect the most effective drug for malaria from resistance, through a novel economic strategy that supports the use of combination therapy, is in danger of being discontinued. The goal has been to boost the … Continue reading “Making the Case to Continue an Innovative Anti-Malaria Program”
First of a two-part series exploring the scourge of tuberculosis and what researchers are doing about it By SHRADDHA CHAKRADHAR Phthisis. Scrofula. Consumption. The White Plague. Tuberculosis has been around long enough to earn many labels. Back in 18th and 19th century Europe it was characterized as “a romantic disease,” given its high prevalence among … Continue reading “Tuberculosis Under the Microscope”
HSPH’s Will Mair hopes his work in worms will identify molecules that have an effect on aging-related diseases—and which could ultimately be tested as treatments for humans. “How old you are is immutable—you can’t change how old an animal is,” says William Mair, assistant professor of genetics and complex diseases at HSPH. “But you can … Continue reading “Why Do We Age? Surprising Revelations from a Worm”
Using a more thorough type of analysis than has been used before to examine the genetic makeup of the malaria parasite, researchers from Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH), Harvard University, and the Broad Institute, in collaboration with colleagues at the Université Cheikh Anta Diop in Senegal, have pinpointed a significant number of sections of … Continue reading “Analyzing Entire Malaria Parasite Genome Provides Clues on Malaria Drug Resistance”
Curtis Huttenhower, assistant professor of computational biology and bioinformatics in the Department of Biostatistics at HSPH, was one of 96 researchers named by President Obama as recipients of the Presidential Early Career Awards for Scientists and Engineers, the highest honor bestowed by the United States Government on science and engineering professionals in the early stages … Continue reading “Curtis Huttenhower Honored by President Obama”
Petabytes of raw information could provide clues for everything from preventing TB to shrinking health care costs—if we can figure out how to use them. Harvard School of Public Health microbiologist Sarah Fortune went to Camden, Maine in late 2010 to attend a small but widely revered conference on innovation called PopTech. Fortune had for … Continue reading “The Promise of Big Data”
Findings could help identify new therapeutic targets for inflammatory diseases NLRP3 inflammasome activation in the macrophage on the left is indicated by the ability to visualize the NLRP3 inflammasome complex (identified by the large yellow puncta). When calcium signaling is blocked pharmacologically in the cell on the right, inflammasomes are not activated, underscoring the critical … Continue reading “HSPH Researchers Uncover How a Key Inflammatory Pathway is Regulated”
On the same day that the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the national health care law, medical researchers from around the globe gathered at the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT for the annual New England Tuberculosis Symposium. The focus of the all-day event was a disturbing global health trend: the emergence of a form of … Continue reading “Worry over drug-resistant TB”
