The body is constantly replenishing the blood with new red and white blood cells thanks to a small but important group of cells called hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs). Now, researchers at the Broad Institute of MIT Harvard, Boston Children’s Hospital, and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute have found that these cells are particularly vulnerable to ferroptosis, a kind of cell death triggered…
Pancreatic cancer is highly lethal, and surgical removal of tumor tissue is currently the only potential cure for most patients. Once the cancer has spread beyond the pancreas, treatment options are limited. A recent phase II clinical trial led by researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), a founding member of Mass General Brigham (MGB), identified a promising combination treatment regimen…
No two hearts beat alike. The size and shape of the the heart can vary from one person to the next. These differences can be particularly pronounced for people living with heart disease, as their hearts and major vessels work harder to overcome any compromised function. MIT engineers are hoping to help doctors tailor treatments to patients’ specific heart form…
“Use it or lose it” goes the adage, applied liberally to everything from our muscles to our minds, especially as we age. Yet when it comes to the brain, such usage is not entirely a good thing: While using brain cells may indeed help maintain memory and other cognitive functions throughout life, scientists have found that the associated activity also…
Tumor cells typically alter their energy metabolism and increase glucose uptake to support their rapid division and spread. This limits glucose availability for immune cells and therefore dampens the body’s anti-cancer immune response. By searching for proteins that both regulate the metabolism of cancer cells and affect immune cells in tumors, a team led by investigators at Massachusetts General Hospital…
Harvard and Mass General scientists have been studying heart-brain connections for years, illuminating one of the most extreme — and potentially deadly — expressions of love: broken heart syndrome. The classic case is when the death of a spouse or child triggers a heart attack in the partner or parent. But recent research indicates that, though broken heart syndrome often…
Our immune systems are charged with identifying dangerous invaders and taking them out before they can cause serious harm. Sometimes, though, the immune system overdoes it, responding by mistake to things that are harmless—or even sometimes helpful—in a process that leaves our own cells and tissues as collateral damage. This kind of immune overreaction is responsible for a variety of…
Over the last two decades, scientists have primarily used two strategies to study the genetics of common diseases like diabetes and schizophrenia. One involves looking for links between disease and common genetic variants such as single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) that are scattered throughout the genome. The other, more recent approach focuses on the protein-coding portion of the genome (the exome)…
In animals, a process of programmed cell death called apoptosis ensures cells die when they should. An opposing force, governed by inhibitor of apoptosis proteins (IAPs), guards against excessive cell death. Together these competing cellular programs help maintain a balance between unchecked cell growth, such as cancer, and excess cell death, as seen in degenerative disease. In a new study,…
EG (a pseudonym) is an accomplished woman in her early 60s: she is a college graduate and has an advanced professional degree. She has a stellar vocabulary—in the 98th percentile, according to tests—and has mastered a foreign language (Russian) to the point that she sometimes dreams in it. She also has, likely since birth, been missing her left temporal lobe,…