Posts by Brian Burns
Online Platform Accelerates Rare Disease Research
Earlier this week, the Mass General Neurological Clinical Research Center (NCRI)’s NeuroBANK™ won Bio-IT World‘s Best Practice award in the Personalized & Translational Medicine category. What is the NeuroBANK, and how is it helping to accelerate the discovery, development, and delivery of future treatments for rare diseases including amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS)? Filling a Need…
Read MorePaganoni Advances ALS Research and Care with Technology
Technological advancements have revolutionized nearly every field of medicine from orthopedics to genetic testing. Sabrina Paganoni, MD, PhD, a clinician and researcher in the Neurological Clinical Research Institute (NCRI) at Massachusetts General Hospital, has seen firsthand the potential power and impact technology could have for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). Paganoni is using technology to find…
Read MoreResearch Finds Daily Exercise Can Make for Healthier, Younger Hearts
Researchers have identified a cellular level link between exercise and healthy hearts that strengthens the case for physical activity.
Read MoreMass General Investigators on the Cutting Edge of ALS Research
May is ALS Awareness Month, intended as a time to raise awareness of and foster research for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. ALS is a progressive neurodegenerative disease that affects nerve cells in the brain and the spinal cord. Eventually these motor neurons die, effecting a patient’s ability to move, eat,…
Read MoreRacing to Stop a ‘Silent’ Killer
The ability to detect ovarian cancer in its early stages continues to elude researchers. Cheng Wang, PhD, is determined to change that.
Read MoreMass General Researcher Maps the Connections Between Allergies and the Microbiome
Nitya Jain, PhD, a researcher at the MassGeneral Hospital for Children’s Mucosal Immunology and Biology Research Center, is studying how changes in the bacterial population in the gut influence T cell development and how signals between the two systems drive this process.
Read MoreStudy Looks at Risk Factors for Overdose in Adolescents
A team of investigators from the Addiction Recovery Management Service at Massachusetts General Hospital have identified factors that may increase the risk of drug overdose in adolescents and young adults. The results of their study were published in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry last month. Here’s a short video summarizing their findings: “Very little…
Read MoreLarge-Scale Study Provides New Insights Into the Genetic Contributors to Schizophrenia
Tarjinder Singh, PhD, is a postdoctoral fellow in the lab of Mark Daly, PhD, in the Analytic and Translational Genetics Unit at Massachusetts General Hospital. His poster, The meta-analysis of rare coding variants in the whole-exome sequences of 25,000 cases and 50,000 controls implicates individual risk genes for schizophrenia, was among the winners at this…
Read MoreMass General Participates in Week-Long Celebration of Science and Discovery
Each year the Cambridge Science Festival hosts a 10-day celebration of science, technology and art in the Greater Boston area with the goal of making science accessible, interactive and fun. This year, the Mass General Research Institute participated in two of the festival’s 200+ events. Science Carnival and Robot Zoo On Saturday, April 14th, Mass General researcher Nitya…
Read MoreGenetic Insights, New Research Models Help to Drive New Rare Disease Research
While it may not have been called rare disease research by name, Massachusetts General Hospital has been identifying and tracking rare diseases for more than a century, says Florian Eichler, MD, Director of the Center for Rare Neurological Diseases in the Department of Neurology. In recent years, advances made by the Human Genome Project and…
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