HMS REEXAMINES CONFLICT-OF-INTEREST POLICY

Following allegations that three Harvard physicians violated federal and university research conflict-of-interest policies, Harvard Medical School is assessing its current regulations and improving implementation.

Senator Charles E. Grassley, an Iowa Republican, brought to light possible conflicts of interest in early June when he revealed that psychiatrists Joseph Biederman, Thomas J. Spencer, and Timothy E. Wilens of Harvard-affiliated Mass. General Hospital failed to report the full amount—totaling over $4 million—that they earned from drug companies over the last seven years, according to the senator’s investigation.

David J. Cameron, a spokesman for the Medical School, said that the school’s Standing Committee on Conflicts of Interest and Commitment, headed by professor Robert J. Mayer, will be reviewing the doctors’ cases.

The Medical School is increasing awareness of conflict-of-interest rules and reviewing its financial disclosure forms, according to Cameron.

Harvard spokesman John D. Longbrake also said that the Medical School will be participating in a University-wide review of its conflict-of-interest policies, scheduled for this fall, to examine the policies at individual schools, institutional conflict policy, and special issues presented by clinical research.

HMS OUTLINES RESEARCH EXPANSIONS

The Medical School released a slew of committee reports in early July as part of its strategic planning process, outlining significant expansions for research in areas like neuroscience and calling for the creation of a bioengineering program.

The seven reports—which address Neuroscience, Microbial Sciences, Aging, Imaging, Social Sciences, and organizational structures at the school—have yet to receive approval from administrators.

But the positive reception from Medical School Dean Jeffrey S. Flier suggests that the proposals will likely receive crucial backing from top administrators. Flier announced that the release of the white papers concludes the first phase of his strategic planning process launched last October, as the reports pave the foundation for “prioritization and detailed planning” this fall.

The most detailed and substantial report—commissioned by the Harvard University Science Engineering Committee tasked with funding and approving cross-school science initiatives—called for the creation of a University-wide bioengineering initiative.

The recommendation proposed an ambitious time-table for building a bioengineering program, including launching an undergraduate concentration two years from now, a graduate program in one year, and an international search for a leader of the initiative starting this month.

The expansion plans come as the University is gearing up for a capital campaign in which the hard sciences are likely to take center stage.

HMS TO HELP BUILD WIKIPEDIA FOR MEDICINE

James P. Currier, founder and chairman of Medpedia—whose stated mission is to become the world’s largest collaborative online encyclopedia of medicine and health—has called upon faculty at the Medical School to lay the groundwork for the project.

Medpedia is a global effort modeled after Wikipedia to build a comprehensive medical resource that will be readily accessible and understandable to both health professionals and patients.

The Web site—which will be launched by the end of the year, though a preview site is already available—will serve as a professional network for the medical community and a platform for patient groups.

Between now and the launch, faculty at the Medical School will be contributing uneditable seed content spanning a broad spectrum of topics ranging from diseases and symptoms to wellness and prevention.

Other academic institutions, including the medical schools at Stanford and Michigan and the UC Berkeley School of Public Health, will be contributing to the Medpedia Project, too—though all of the content they provide will be editable.

HARVARD RESEARCHERS CREATE DISEASE-SPECIFIC CELL LINES

It won’t be long before scientists can order shipments of disease-specific cell lines from the Harvard Stem Cell Institute so they can study diseases in Petri dishes, according to a paper released in August by scientists at HSCI.

Harvard researchers have already created stem cells for 10 genetic disorders using a new technique that isolates human induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells.

The technique allows scientists to manipulate a patient’s cells genetically—typically skin cells or blood cells—and reprogram them into a pluripotent state. Like embryonic stem cells, these iPS cells are then capable of morphing into any type of body tissue.

“This has really been one of the goals of stem cell biology for many years—to be able to produce customized disease-specific lines for different patients,” said George Q. Daley, a member of the executive committee of HSCI and the senior author of the paper, which was published on the Web site of the journal Cell.

Daley, who is also a professor at Harvard Medical School, said he and his colleagues created 20 stable iPS cell lines from patients with genetic diseases including Parkinson’s, Huntington’s, Down Syndrome, juvenile-onset Type I diabetes, and two types of muscular dystrophy.

The disease-specific iPS lines will soon be deposited in the new HSCI iPS Core Facility at Mass. General Hospital to be produced on a larger scale for distribution among the scientific community.

HARVARD RESEARCHERS MAKE BREAKTHROUGH IN CELL REPROGRAMMING

After three years of endless experiments on mouse cells, scientists at the Harvard Stem Cell Institute have discovered the three transcription factors out of a possible 1,100 that may provide the key to unlocking the secret to growing replacement tissues—a longtime goal of regenerative medicine.

HSCI co-director Douglas A. Melton is the first to report successful “direct reprogramming,” a technique that, as its name suggests, directly transforms one type of a fully formed adult cell into another.

Using this technique, Melton and his colleagues were able to turn ordinary mouse exocrine cells of the pancreas into beta cells, vital insulin-producing cells that die off in Type I diabetes patients.

The findings, published in late August on the Web site of the British journal Nature, have implications for finding a new treatment or cure for diabetes.

And the technique could also be applicable, for example, to other disorders that affect the cardiovascular or nervous system such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease), as scientists could potentially grow heart or nerve cells.

Despite the relative efficiency of this approach, both Melton and Daley stressed that direct reprogramming does not eliminate the need to continue work with iPS cells or human embryonic stem cells. Melton explained that it is simply another way of approaching the same problem scientists face in regenerative medicine—how to make cells to replace lost or deficient ones.

—Clifford M. Marks contributed to the reporting of this story.
—Staff writer June Q. Wu can be reached at junewu@fas.harvard.edu.