News

Parker lab mends hearts, tackles an 'invisible' trauma

The team from the Disease Biophysics Lab is featured in the Boston Globe and Men's Journal

The Disease Biophysics Group (DBG) at Harvard University is an interdisciplinary team of biologists, physicists, engineers and material scientists actively researching the structure/function relationship in cardiac, neural, and vascular smooth muscle tissue engineering. We seek to quantify cellular mechanotransduction at the single-cell and tissue level to understand the effect on electrophysiology and disease states.

Led by Kit Parker, Thomas D. Cabot Associate Professor of Applied Science, the lab's work has been featured in the Boston Globe Magazine and in Men's Journal.

Need a New Heart? Grow Your Own.

The idea sounds like science fiction. But it might someday come true. A group of Boston scientists is pushing the bounds of regenerative medicine.

"According to Greek mythology, the god Prometheus granted human beings the gift of fire. As punishment, an angry Zeus condemned Prometheus to a life of torture. An eagle swooped down and tore out his liver every day. But each night, his liver grew back. While this created a nightmare for Prometheus, one element of his story represents the dream of a number of scientists in the Boston area: regrowing cells, tissues, perhaps someday even entire organs or limbs."

Read the complete article in the Boston Globe Magazine

The War’s Invisible Wounded

"They return seemingly intact but beset by fierce migraines and sleepless nights, unable to complete the most basic tasks. It’s an epidemic not seen in previous wars — tens of thousands of soldiers afflicted with a brain condition caused by repeated exposure to blasts. And the military has done little to help them."

Read the complete article in Men's Journal