Welcome to Benchmarks, a weekly collection of news and notes about the Mass General Research Institute. With a community of over 9,500 people that spans more than 30 departments centers and institutes, there’s more news each week that we can get to.
Here are a few highlights:
Orefice Featured in HMS' Science Matters Video Series
Lauren Orefice, PhD, an investigator in the Department of Molecular Biology at Mass General and Assistant Professor of Genetics at Harvard Medical School, was recently featured in the HMS' Science Matters video series.
"Our sense of touch and sensations from our internal organs, like the gastrointestinal tract, are critical for daily life and endow us with the remarkable ability to experience and interact with the external and internal worlds"
"For many people, including those with autism spectrum disorder, atypical sensory processing can impact quality of life. So our work aims to identify novel therapeutic strategies to treat sensory issues." Learn more about Dr. Orefice's work.
Digital Data Helps Track Disease Progression in ALS
James Berry, MD, MPH, the Winthrop Family Scholar in ALS Sciences, Averill Healey Endowed Chair in ALS, Associate Chief for Neurotherapeutics and Chief of the Division of ALS and Motor Neuron Diseases at Massachusetts General Hospital, is working to develop tools to leverage digital data to more accurately quantify behavior and function in ALS, reduce clinical trial burden for people with ALS and hasten drug development.
“Unlike traditional ALS outcome measures, which provide sparse data, digital biomarkers can reflect changes in function quickly and accurately,” says Dr. Berry.
“The huge digital datasets are statistically powerful, facilitate more efficient clinical trials and inform clinical care.” Read more.
Researchers Uncover Racial and Ethnic Disparities in a Widely Used Precision Oncology Data Registry
Biorepositories created to support precision cancer research through their vast stores of genomic data may lack sufficient representation of cancer distribution among racial and ethnic minorities, Mass General researchers have found.
"Our findings suggest that these data registries do not reflect the true landscape of cancer patients in the U.S., and may therefore misrepresent the disease burden in many racial/ethnic minority populations," says senior author Sophia Kamran, MD, with the MGH Department of Radiation Oncology, and director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion for the department.
"The need is greater than ever for diversity to be a mission-critical priority for precision medicine so that breakthroughs or new findings from biorepositories can broadly apply to and be safe for diverse cancer populations." Learn more.
Tweets of the Week
Our paper is out and was nominated for best research article in AJNR https://t.co/L5829rhD6u
— Min Lang, MD, MSc | minlang.eth (@MinLangMD) February 3, 2023
Today, our care teams participated in #GoRedDay to raise awareness about women’s heart health!
— MassGeneral News (@MassGeneralNews) February 3, 2023#HeartMonth pic.twitter.com/0sGwGSRS9B
Quick life update! after a whirlwind few months of defending my thesis and wrapping up projects/experiments @CincyChildrens (L), I’ve moved to Boston to start a postdoc @MGH_RI/@harvardmed! Hopefully I’ll slowly figure out the postdoc thing but at least the view (R) is nice!
— Shreyasi Mukherjee (@_smukherjee) February 9, 2023pic.twitter.com/ne1SDNykj1
What wonderful recognition of these two brilliant, incredibly talented and hard working individuals!! Congratulations to George Alba and Raghu Chivukula!! https://t.co/Dla19Dicf3
— Lida Hariri (@LidaHariri) February 10, 2023
This Week in Mass General History
Mass General Patient Gives Blood to Save Young Woman
February 11, 1909 – The Shiner Gazette of Shiner, Texas reports that when William J. Sheehan, a North Abington School committeeman and a patient in the Massachusetts General Hospital, gave up blood from his own body, he saved the life of a young woman, who is now recovering.
Sheehan heard the woman needed blood to save her life and volunteered to give his.
Mass General Treats 30 Oil Company Workers Injured in Explosion
February 10, 1928– A gas explosion at the Beacon Oil company in Everett resulted in death of eight workers an injuries to 30 others. The injured were brought to Mass General for treatment.
The Beacon Oil company operated the largest independent chain of gas stations in New England under the name of Colonial Filling Stations.
The Everett refinery covered 100 acres of ground and had a history of accidents and explosions.
According to the Boston Globe, a group of Everett residents appeared at a hearing before the State Fire Marshal in March of 1928 to seek the revocation of the company’s operating permit.
The first question is not one of property, but protection of life, the speakers declared, saying that there was no guarantee that another explosion—potentially even worse—could occur at any time.
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