Psychiatric Disorders

Gut-brain connection in autism

January 7, 2022

Harvard and MIT researchers identify possible mechanism linking autism and intestinal inflammation

Many people with autism spectrum disorders also experience unusual gastrointestinal inflammation, but thus far scientists have not established whether and how those conditions might be linked.

Now, Harvard Stem Cell Institute (HSCI) researchers at Harvard Medical School, along with MIT researchers, may have found the missing link: infections during pregnancy can lead to high levels of the inflammatory signaling molecule interleukin-17a (...

Read more about Gut-brain connection in autism

Reinventing painkillers

November 5, 2018

Clifford Woolf wants to reboot drug discovery to find a new way to treat pain: effectively and responsibly.

  • Woolf’s goal is to stop the opioid crisis by rejecting the conventional approach to drug discovery and developing painkillers that do not harm people or communities. 
  • He is using stem cells to create models of pain, outside the body and in a dish, that can be used to screen for drugs swiftly and on a large scale.
  • The new approach requires ‘all hands’: expertise, equipment, and collaboration in stem...
Read more about Reinventing painkillers