MIT biochemist Alexander Rich has won the Welch Award in Chemistry for his fundamental insights into the structure and function of RNA and DNA. He will receive the $300,000 prize in October.

Caritas Christi Health Care's senior vice president and chief information officer is leaving for Vermont. Charles H. Podesta, 50, will become chief information officer of Fletcher Allen Health Care in Burlington, Vt., in June. Last month Roger Deshaies, formerly senior vice president for finance at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, joined Fletcher Allen as its chief financial officer. The hospital is affiliated with the University of Vermont School of Medicine.

Clifford J. Tabin, a professor of genetics at Harvard Medical School, is one of two scientists to win the 2008 March of Dimes Prize in Developmental Biology. He will share the $250,000 award with Philip A. Beachy of Stanford. They are being honored for their work with "hedgehog" genes and how they affect the way embryos develop and form limbs, the brain, and other organs. Hedgehog genes got their name from the prickly appearance they gave fruit fly embryos.

Dr. Andy Whittemore, chief medical officer at Brigham and Women's Hospital, has been elected president of the American Surgical Association. Whittemore trained as a vascular surgeon, was a division chief at Brigham and Women's, and has been chief medical officer there since 1999.

Caritas St. Elizabeth's Medical Center in Brighton should end its role as a top-level academic hospital treating complex cases and Caritas Carney Hospital in Dorchester should consider becoming primarily a mental health center, says a report on the Caritas Christi Health Care System by Attorney General Martha Coakley. The report, based on a four-month study by a consultant, also urges the Archdiocese of Boston to cede control of the eastern Massachusetts hospital chain to an independent board with expertise in healthcare management. The board running the hospitals now answers to Cardinal Sean P. O'Malley. In an editorial, the Globe says Caritas' internal recommendations for changing governance would leave O'Malley with too much control, adding "sluggishness that Caritas cannot afford."

Scientists in California reported in the journal Science today on a new approach to developing a vaccine against Group A streptococcal infections, the cause of strep throat, rheumatic fever and necrotizing fascitis, commonly known as "flesh-eating" syndrome.

In business, Exact Sciences Corp.'s shares soared nearly 45 percent after the American Cancer Society and other health groups recommended use of its stool DNA test to screen for colon cancer; Genzyme Corp. launched its kidney disease drug Renvela; and German dialysis patients have gotten sick using a different brand of heparin than the Baxter International product that has been linked to 19 deaths in the US, leading the FDA yesterday to advise all US suppliers of the blood-thinner to use a special high-tech test for a contaminant found in some batches of Baxter's heparin.

By Chris Reidy, Globe Staff

Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley announced today that she will work with a consultant to conduct a review of the Caritas Christi Health Care System.

Caritas Christi is owned by the Archdiocese of Boston, which has been exploring a possible sale of the six-hospital system, the second largest in New England.

In the past year, the archdiocese attempted to transfer ownership of the Caritas Christi system and its $275 million in debt to two successful Catholic healthcare chains, but was unable to reach a deal with either system, the Globe has reported.

"With the recent termination of affiliation discussions with other systems, we believe it is now an appropriate time to conduct a more focused review of Caritas on a stand-alone basis," Coakley said in a statement today.

Six Massachusetts hospitals have made a consulting company's list of 100 US hospitals that have improved their performance.

Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Brigham and Women's Hospital and Caritas St. Elizabeth's Medical Center in Boston; UMass Memorial Medical Center in Worcester; NSMC Union Hospital in Lynn and Lowell General Hospital were recognized by Thomson Healthcare for better clinical outcomes, safety, financial stability and growth from 2001 to 2005.

The unranked 2006 list appeared in last week's Modern Healthcare magazine.

By Liz Kowalczyk, Globe Staff

Dr. Robert Haddad, the former Catholic hospital chief who was forced out amid complaints of sexual harassment, was warned about his behavior by the state licensing board today and told to get training about "maintaining appropriate interpersonal boundaries in the workplace."

The state Board of Registration in Medicine, which licenses Massachusetts doctors, issued a formal Letter of Warning to Haddad, but stopped short of disciplinary action. A warning letter is not part of a doctor's personal profile, which is posted on the board's public website, and is not reported to a national database that tracks discipline against physicians.

Haddad was forced to resign in May 2006 as head of Caritas Christi Health Care System, the hospital network owned by the Archdiocese of Boston, after four female employees complained that he sexually harassed them, including hugging them and kissing some on the mouth.

While chief of cardiovascular research at Caritas St. Elizabeth's Medical Center, a doctor now at Northwestern tested a stem-cell extraction technique on himself before going ahead with an experiment to transplant patients' stem cells into their hearts, the Chicago Sun Times reports today.

Dr. Douglas Losordo (left, in 2002 Globe photo) moved to Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine in December 2006. The pilot study began in 2003 while he was a professor of medicine at Tufts University School of Medicine and a cardiologist at St. Elizabeth's.

Losordo did not go on to have stem cells injected via catheter into his heart. Before the small trial to test safety began, he took a drug for five days that boosted production of stem cells in his bloodstream and then had them removed and purified in a process similar to dialysis, the story says.

"I wanted to see what it would be like for patients before I subjected them to the procedure," he told the Sun Times.

The study subjects all had severe angina, or chest pain, that could not be treated by surgery, stents or angioplasty. The group of patients who received stem cells injected into heart muscle that was not receiving blood flow reported fewer angina attacks over six months than the group of patients who underwent catheterization, but did not receive stem cells, the story said.

The results appear in the June 26 issue of Circulation.

On Running a Hospital, Paul Levy compares the troubles of the Caritas Christi Health Care system to the ones he faced when he took over at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. It was January 2002 and Attorney General Tom Reilly was pushing to sell the hospital to a for-profit company. Levy says reorganizing the Beth Israel Deaconess board in relation to its parent Caregroup was key to its survival.

"The marvelous hospitals of the Caritas Christi system and the caring and thoughtful staff in those hospitals need to be governed by the communities they serve," Levy writes. "Local board members who are held accountable for their actions will have the business sense and the dedication to make the decisions needed to ensure that the faith-based mission of their institutions is successful."

By Liz Kowalczyk, Globe Staff

Children's Hospital Boston and Caritas Christi Health Care today announced an affiliation agreement in which Children's Hospital doctors will provide care at three Caritas nurseries for sick babies.

Children's physicians will staff the neonatal intensive care unit at Caritas St. Elizabeth’s Medical Center in Boston and the special care nurseries at Caritas Good Samaritan Medical Center in Brockton and Caritas Holy Family Hospital and Medical Center in Methuen.

The agreement provides a guarantee to Caritas that it won't encounter a shortage of specialists to staff its nurseries and the opportunity to associate itself with the prestigious Harvard teaching hospital.

Children's, which will care for the sickest children at its own neonatal intensive care unit, extends its reach to a new group of potential patients.

A new campaign called The Prescription Project seeks to end conflicts of interest that may arise from pharmaceutical company marketing aimed at physicians. It calls for academic medical centers to tighten their policies governing ties with industry.

"We are looking to see that payers, consumers and physicians work together to promote evidence-based medicine and to counter the bias of drug marketing," said Robert Restuccia, the project's Boston-based executive director.

The Prescription Project points to Stanford University Medical School, University of Pennsylvania Health System and Yale University School of Medicine as leaders. While their models vary, the institutions restrict gifts to doctors, drug samples and visits by industry sales representatives.

Boston hospitals surveyed by the Globe during the past week say they require drug company employees and other vendors to register with them before visiting, but other policies vary.

Dr. Ellen Lathi of Caritas St. Elizabeth’s Medical Center has won the 2006 Health Care Professional Volunteer Award from the Central New England Chapter of the National Multiple Sclerosis Society.

A neurologist, she was honored for helping patients gain access to medications. She is a member of the MS group's Clinical Advisory Committee.

Cardinal Sean P. O'Malley and a tight circle of archdiocese leaders have made a tentative deal to transfer ownership of the six hospitals in the Caritas Christi Health Care system, including Caritas St. Elizabeth's Medical Center in Brighton, to the nation's largest Catholic hospital chain, St. Louis-based Ascension Health.

"Forgotten Genius" on NOVA tonight tells the story of Percy Julian, the black chemist whose work in the face of segregation led directly to the steroids that treat rheumatoid arthritis and indirectly to the birth control pill.

A woman who worked for the state's largest Catholic hospital chain for 20 years filed a sexual harassment complaint against former Caritas chief executive Dr. Robert Haddad. In it she spells out what she said occurred over 15 months and ended when she was laid off, allegedly in retaliation for complaining to hospital executives.

Lavender and tea tree oils found in some shampoos, soaps, and lotions can temporarily leave boys with enlarged breasts in rare cases, apparently by disrupting their hormonal balance, a preliminary study suggests.

Brigham and Women's Hospital is trying to replenish its cardiology staff, after outside recruiters raided the department last year. The Brigham, which particularly needs a strong cardiology department as it prepares to open a $350 million cardiovascular wing next year, lost six, or 10 percent, of its 50 cardiologists last year.

They were lured away by private medical companies and by Case Western Reserve University Medical School and its affiliated University Hospitals of Cleveland, which are trying to compete with the Cleveland Clinic -- world renowned for its heart care and research.

In response, Brigham executives have gone on their own head-hunting spree, hiring three cardiologists who will start their new jobs in the next few months.