front lines A MOLECULAR SWITCH FOR AGING As we get older, why do our bodies tend to “turn off” cellular processes that protect against metabolic diseases like type 2 diabetes or heart disease? Chih-Hao Lee, associate professor of genetics and complex diseases at HSPH, along with graduate student Shannon Reilly and other colleagues, has discovered the off switch: it’s the protein SMRT. In studies on aging animals, SMRT switched off the protective work of certain other proteins called PPARS that help our bodies burn fats and reduce damage from oxidants. These findings, published in the December 1, 2010, edition of Cell Metabolism, may open doors for new drug treatments to stop or slow the development of metabolic disease.
South Africa’s Health Minister Speaks on AIDS
Frenk and Knaul featured in Science
In South Africa, “HIV is a disease suffered by women but caused by men. Most of the young Aaron Motsoaledi, Minister of Health, Republic of South Africa
girls who are HIV positive are actually orphans. It becomes a vicious cycle.
You’ve got women dying of AIDS and leaving their children alone. They become vulnerable to older men with money because they cannot survive. We’ve got lots of orphans who are developing HIV because they had sex at an early age with a married man. That’s a problem we are struggling with.”
— The Honorable Dr. Aaron Motsoaledi, MBCHB, Minister of Health, Republic of South Africa, delivering a Dean’s Distinguished Lecture at the Harvard School of Public Health on March 30, 2011
Learn More Online Visit the Review Online at http://hsph.me/frontlines for links to press releases, news reports, and the original research studies behind these stories.
10
Harvard Public Health Review
Clockwise from top, BDFM/Gallo Images; Getty Images; Kent Dayton/HSPH
HSPH Dean Julio Frenk is featured in Science magazine’s March 25, 2011, special issue on the “Cancer Crusade at 40.” The article, “A Push to Fight Cancer in the Developing World,” highlights the work of Frenk and his colleagues on the Julio Frenk and Felicia Knaul Global Task Force on Expanded Access to Cancer Care and Control in Developing Countries to move cancer up on the global health agenda. The article also features Felicia Knaul, who leads the Task Force Secretariat and is director of the Harvard Global Equity Initiative. The profile describes her experience as a woman living with cancer and global advocate for expanded access to cancer care, and Frenk and Knaul’s work as a couple.