Ragon Institute Investigator Filippos Porichis, PhD has been recognized by the Collaboration for AIDS Vaccine Discovery (CAVD) for significant contributions to research conducted within the CAVD.  Dr. Porichis was nominated for the Early Career Investigator Award by Dr. Bruce Walker,  CAVD Principal Investigator and Director of the Ragon Institute.

 

The Collaboration for AIDS Vaccine Discovery (CAVD) is an international network of scientists and experts dedicated to designing a variety of novel HIV vaccine candidates and advancing the most promising candidates to clinical trials.   The CAVD provides funding for a range of innovative strategies aimed at designing an effective HIV vaccine. The program is designed to foster collaboration among researchers to speed up the communication of results and the sharing of ideas.  The honor includes recognition on the CAVD website, a letter of appreciation from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and an opportunity to present research on an upcoming CAVD Online Data Forum.

 

Dr. Filippos Porichis is the Director of International Programs at the Ragon Institute and serves as a member of the Executive Committee of the MGH Center for Global Health. He is an Instructor in Medicine at Harvard Medical School and an Assistant in Immunology at Massachusetts General Hospital. He received his PhD from the University of Crete and the Institute of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology in Crete and subsequently joined the Ragon Institute for his Post-Doctoral training under the supervision of Dr. Daniel Kaufmann.

 

Dr. Porichis’s research focus is on T cell responses in HIV infection, with the goal of understanding the etiology of T cell dysfunction and the identification of novel ways of manipulating immunoregulatory pathways to enhance immunity to HIV. Over the past 5 years, he has investigated the inhibitory impact of regulatory pathways like PD-1 and IL-10 and has shown that modulation of these inhibitory pathways can restore effective HIV-specific CD4 and CD8 T cell functionality.

 

Dr. Porichis is interested in the development of novel techniques that will enable greater functional characterization of effective immune responses. He participated in the development of next-generation fluorescent in situ hybridization (FISH) assays in collaboration with Affymatrix, which allow for the sensitive detection of RNA molecules by flow cytometry.

 

He is also actively involved in the creation of panels forCyTOF (mass cytometry) for the characterization of T cell responses in HIV infection.

 

His current projects include the investigation of the fine structure and regulation of HIV-specific CD4 T cell responses, including follicular T helper cells, that is associated with enhanced CD4 help to B cells for the development of neutralizing antibodies.

 

Previous Ragon Institute faculty members who have received the CAVD Early Career Investigator Award include Zaza Ndhlovu, Ph.D. and Sylvie Le Gall, PhD.