Focus: Hidden - Massachusetts

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By developing a new approach to imaging and manipulating particular groups of neurons in the mouse brain, scientists at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) have identified a pathway by which neurons governing feelings of hunger influence distant neurons involved in the decision of whether or not to react to food-related cues. Their findings could open the door to targeted therapies that dampen food cue-evoked cravings in people with obesity. The research was published online today in the journal Nature.

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The award recognizes Aiello's research to determine the underlying biochemistry and molecular mechanisms of diabetic retinopathies, then develop and test novel therapeutic interventions through rigorous translational and clinical trial research.

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At a glance: Most frequent genetic cause of ALS and a form of dementia (FTD) is known to produce toxic peptides that interfere with RNA splicing—an intermediary step in generating functional proteins from genes. New Harvard Medical School study finds these toxic peptides block assembly of the cellular machinery responsible for RNA splicing. This blockage leads to splicing errors for genes that regulate the workings of mitochondria and neurons and the expression of other genes. Restoring normal splicing function may be a therapeutic strategy for averting or treating the development of ALS, FTD or both.

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At a glance: People with low levels of vitamin A living in households with people who have TB were 10 times more likely to develop the disease themselves. The study findings suggest that vitamin A supplementation may offer powerful protection against the deadly disease among high-risk individuals. TB, one of the top infectious disease killers globally, hits especially hard in low- and middle-income countries, where vitamin A deficiencies are common.

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Residents and staff from five local senior living communities joined forces with Olin College students and professionals in aging services for the LeadingAge MA Hackfest at North Hi

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Biddy Martin is among more than 1,200 leaders to sign a new statement about the U.S. withdrawal from the Paris climate agreement.

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Flatworms that spent five weeks aboard the International Space Station are helping researchers led by Tufts University scientists to study how an absence of normal gravity and geomagnetic fields can have anatomical, behavioral, and bacteriological consequences, according to a paper to be published June 13 in Regeneration. The research has implications for human and animal space travelers and for regenerative and bioengineering science.

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Joslin Diabetes Center has established a Center for Cell-Based Therapy for Diabetes (CCTD), the goal of which is to lead the development and translation of cell-based interventions to treat and cure diabetes and its complications.

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Many cultures traditionally use herbs believed to increase milk supply – so called galactagogues – although scientific data are lacking. Now Whitehead Institute Member Jing-Ke Weng and the Family Larsson-Rosenquist Foundation are teaming up to explore the effects of galactagogues on milk production.

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Massachusetts Eye and Ear has received an anonymous gift totaling more than $20M to accelerate research at its Eaton-Peabody Laboratories, the world’s largest and most preeminent hearing research center. This gift represents one of the country’s largest philanthropic investments ever to advance research on hearing and hearing loss, a significant public health problem impacting one-third of the world’s population over age 65.

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Since 2014, seven U.S. municipal or county jurisdictions have adopted excise taxes to reduce the consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages, but no such taxes have been passed at the state or federal level. A new viewpoint evaluates reasons for success or failure and whether such local taxes are likely to spread.

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Scientists recognized for seminal discoveries in cancer’s ability to thwart immune surveillance that paved the way to immune-based cancer therapies

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The study tested the efficacy of tildrakizumab, an antibody that targets only a very specific immune system pathway. More than 60 percent of all patients who received the active medication showed improvement, compared to less than 10 percent of patients who received placebos.

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-Mail-order liver helps researchers identify elusive protein linked to cancer, neurodegeneration

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A founder of U.S. Alzheimer’s research, Robert D. Terry, has died at 93. He first showed what plaques and tangles look like in the electron microscope, and linked failing cognition to withering synapses in the brain.

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The National Cancer Institute (NCI) has awarded four Dana-Farber Cancer Institute researchers with Outstanding Investigator Awards (OIA) for ongoing progressive research within their respective areas of study.

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The Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (ARVO) recently announced that Reza Dana, M.D, MPH, M.Sc., Director of Cornea and Refractive Surgery at Massachusetts Eye and Ear and a resident of Newton, Mass., will receive the prestigious Friedenwald Award.

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A new study finds that U.S. dairy products are a significant source of the MK form of vitamin K and indicates that MK forms of the nutrient are more present in commonly-consumed foods than previously thought.

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At a meeting in Leuven, Belgium, a coherent picture began to emerge for how fluid pockets of proteins and RNAs contribute to health and disease.

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The Fund will begin accepting proposals September 1, 2017, and, if approved, projects will be funded from $40,000 in initial seed funding provided by Olin College and Aramark Corporation, Facilities Services.

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Dana-Farber Cancer Institute has named Lesley Solomon to the newly-created position of senior vice president for innovation and chief innovation officer. Solomon has been serving as executive director of the Brigham Innovation Hub at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and director of strategy and innovation in the Brigham Research Institute.

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Babson College’s Women Innovating Now (WIN) Lab® and Women Entrepreneurs Boston (WE BOS) invite all to attend their annual Summer Soiree on June 7—a free event to meet with, and learn more about, women entrepreneurs in the community and learn more about the program. WIN Lab applications are open until June 30.

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On May 24, 2017, Babson VP for Programming and Community Outreach Jane C. Edmonds, along with the Boston Chamber of Commerce President James Rooney, Mayor Marty Walsh, and 50 Boston business and civic leaders took a trip to Washington, DC to discuss issues of race and economic mobility.

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Changing natural electrical signaling in non-neural cells improves innate immune response to bacterial infections and injury. Tadpoles that received therapeutics, including those used in humans for other purposes, which depolarized their cells had higher survival rates when infected with E. coli than controls. The research has applications for treatment of emerging diseases and traumatic injury in humans.

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Women Innovating Now (WIN) Lab® just wrapped up its fourth year with two grand finale events in Boston and Miami, adding 37 leading women entrepreneurs to its growing alumni base. WIN Lab® participants have collectively raised nearly $5.5 million in funding since program launch in 2013. The 2016-2017 Boston cohort has raised over $1.9 million, and the WIN Lab’s first Miami entrepreneurs have raised over $1.5 million.

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Harvard Medical School Expert Calls for Protection of Critical Gains Made in Cancer Care Under Obamacare

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June 1 Event to Highlight Winners Features WGBH’s Kara Miller and Aging 2.0’s Stephen Johnston

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Two Babson graduate alumni businesses—DropZone for Veterans and GEMS Boxes—have been named finalists in the 2017 MassChallenge Boston accelerator program.

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Chocolate consumption, particularly of dark chocolate, has been linked to improvements in various indicators of heart health. This study examined the possible association between chocolate intake and a lower rate of being diagnosed with atrial fibrillation. While this is an observational study, researchers believe these findings warrant further consideration to identify effective prevention strategies for atrial fibrillation.

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This year, Babson College is celebr­ating the careers and accomplish­ments of a number of its longer serving and valued faculty members. Sydel Sokuvitz, Michael Fetters, Allan Cohen, Kent Jones, Robert McAuliffe, Dawna Dewire, William Coyle, Joanne Williams, and William Hebard are among those enjoying either 25, 35, or 40 year anniversaries at Babson College.

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Two Olin College teams will spend the summer in an intensive 10-week venture accelerator at Babson College.

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Babson College, ranked No. 1 for entrepreneurship, is one of the nation's best institutions at offering its undergrads both outstanding academics and outstanding experiential learning opportunities according to The Princeton Review® and the second edition of its book, "Colleges That Create Futures: 50 Schools That Launch Careers by Going Beyond the Classroom."

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Babson College announces that Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf will deliver the Commencement address to undergraduate students and graduate students during ceremonies on the Wellesley campus on Saturday, May 20, 2017.

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A new study finds that citizens living in states with the weakest gun laws are more than twice as likely to be fatally shot by law enforcement compared to those living in states with the strongest gun laws.

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The number of women chief executives at the largest 150 Massachusetts nonprofits grew in recent years, accounting for 26 percent of those jobs, up three percent from two years ago. These findings were recently released in the report, Modest Gains, Robust Benefits, as part of the third biennial Census of Women Directors and Chief Executives of Massachusetts’ Largest Nonprofit Organizations—issued by The Boston Club in collaboration with local researchers, including Babson College Professors Danna Greenberg and Wendy Murphy.

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At a glance: BioPlex network identifies protein interaction partners for more than 5,800 protein-coding genes, representing more than a quarter of the human genome. The network maps over 56,000 unique protein-to-protein interactions among nearly 11,000 proteins, significantly expanding coverage of the human interactome. 87 percent of identified interactions were previously undescribed. BioPlex serves as “social network,” providing functional insights into protein communities involving many areas of biology, from development to disease.

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Babson College Entrepreneurship Research Conference (BCERC), widely considered the premier conference for entrepreneurial research, was established in 1981 to provide a dynamic venue where academics and real-world practitioners link theory and practice, and to encourage and increase quality research in entrepreneurship

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At a glance: Hospitalized patients have a slightly higher risk of dying when treated by older hospitalists—internal medicine specialists who oversee the care of acutely ill hospitalized patients. Physician age made no difference in patient mortality rates for doctors who treated large numbers of patients. The results suggest the critical importance of continuing medical education throughout the span of a physician’s professional career. Age played no role in patient readmission rates but older physicians were slightly more likely to incur greater treatment costs.

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Babson, ranked No. 1 for entrepreneurship, has announced the 14 teams that will be participating in the ninth Summer Venture Program (SVP) through the Arthur M. Blank Center for Entrepreneurship. This year the program will be held entirely in the new Babson Boston campus at 100 High Street.

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Olin College of Engineering held its twelfth Commencement Exercises May 14 on its Needham campus.

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While the NFL’s player health policies and practices are robust in some areas, there are opportunities for improvement in others, according to the findings of a newly released report by researchers at The Petrie-Flom Center at Harvard Law School.

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Babson College's F.W. Olin Graduate School of Business full-time MBA program has been recognized as one of the top 50 worldwide for a career in finance according to the Financial Times (FT) Top MBAs for Finance 2017 ranking.

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A group of six Binghamton University engineering students has created a functional biomechanical hand using 3D printing technology for an amputee who works on campus, as an opportunity to improve her life.

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Following the launch of the Master of Science in Business Analytics (MSBA) program at the Wellesley campus, Babson, ranked No. 1 for entrepreneurship, will now be offering the flexible part-time MSBA program at Babson San Francisco beginning in the spring of 2018.

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Leading hospital “superbugs,” known as the enterococci, arose from an ancestor that dates back 450 million years — about the time when animals were first crawling onto land (and well before the age of dinosaurs), according to a new study.

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New methodology allowed researchers at BIDMC to more easily investigate mechanisms of infection and provide new insight into how pathogens can work together to cause disease. Using the new tool, researchers confirmed a safer model for study of Brucella species, which cause a potentially debilitating infectious disease in humans and cattle.

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Babson has selected the inaugural undergraduate and graduate fellows for the new Women in Technology (WIT) initiative.

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Babson graduate students John Kluge MBA’17 and Ross Chesnick MBA’17 have been recognized as two of the world’s “most accomplished, inventive, and selfless full-time MBAs" as part of Poets & Quants third annual Best & Brightest MBAs feature, showcasing the top 100 students worldwide from the Class of 2017.

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Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center’s (BIDMC) Barbara B. Kahn, MD, an international leader in the field of diabetes, endocrinology and metabolism, has been elected to the prestigious National Academy of Sciences (NAS).

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In Babson College’s Van Winkle Hall, students have worked with the college to establish their very own “full-stack” living-learning community. Student entrepreneurs, software developers, and designers now live purposefully as neighbors in Babson’s E-tower, CODE, and theStudio—modeling that of a modern-day startup.