Investigators from Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH) and the Harvard Stem Cell Institute have a potential solution for how to kill tumour cells that have metastasised to the brain. The team has developed cancer-killing viruses that can deliver stem cells via the carotid artery, and applied them to metastatic tumours in the brain of clinically relevant mouse models. The investigators report the elimination of metastatic skin cancer...

Delivering drugs to the brain is no easy task. The blood-brain barrier -a protective sheath of tissue that shields the brain from harmful chemicals and invaders - cannot be penetrated by most therapeutics that are injected into a person's blood stream. But for treating diseases of the central nervous system and cancers such as glioblastoma, it's essential to get drugs across this barrier and deliver them to where they are needed most.

A collaboration of scientists from Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Draper Laboratory, an engineering firm, have been working on a wireless system to power electronic implants placed within the gastrointestinal (GI) tract. Batteries are currently the only practical option for most implants, but their lifetime is limited and it is difficult to overcome the incompatibility of the mucosal lining with the...

Lots of factors can contribute to how fast an organism ages: diet, genetics and environmental interventions can all influence lifespan. But in order to understand how each factor influences aging—and which ones may help slow its progression—researchers need an accurate biomarker, a clock that distinguishes between chronological and biological age. A traditional clock can measure the passage of chronological time and chronological...

Hutchinson-Gilford progeria syndrome (HGPS) is an extremely rare genetic condition that causes premature and accelerated aging. Recently, researchers have been able to generate induced pluripotent stem cells from patients with HGPS to better understand the mechanisms of aging and look for new treatments. HGPS primarily affects vascular cells, which undergo biomechanical strains in blood vessels.

Investigators at Brigham and Women's Hospital, together with collaborators from Massachusetts General Hospital, have developed an innovative nanoplatform that allows them to effectively deliver RNA interference (RNAi) agents to the sites of cancer and suppress tumor growth and reduce metastasis in preclinical models of anaplastic thyroid cancer (ATC). Their results appear in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Being able to detect early on whether a cancer therapy is working for a patient can influence the course of treatment and improve outcomes and quality of life. However, conventional detection methods – such as PET scans, CT and MRI – usually cannot detect whether a tumor is shrinking until a patient has received multiple cycles of therapy.