The Ragon Institute is pleased to welcome Caroline Sokol, MD, PhD, as a new faculty member. Sokol will lead the Sokol Lab as a Member of the Ragon Institute, while also serving as an Assistant Physician at Massachusetts General Hospital and an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School.

A physician-scientist with expertise in allergy and immunology, Sokol studies how the immune system recognizes and responds to allergens. Her work sits at the intersection of immunology, neuroscience, and clinical medicine, with the goal of advancing new strategies to treat and prevent allergic disease.

Sokol received her BA and MS degrees from the University of Pennsylvania before pursuing her MD/PhD at Yale University. There, under the mentorship of Ruslan Medzhitov, MD, PhD, she studied how the immune system detects and responds to allergens. She later completed her clinical training in Internal Medicine and Allergy & Immunology at Massachusetts General Hospital.

In 2013, Sokol became a board-certified Allergist and Immunologist and an attending physician in the Allergy and Clinical Immunology Unit at MGH. Alongside her clinical work, she continued to build her research program, including postdoctoral training with Andrew Luster, MD, PhD, focused on the innate immune system and its role in allergic responses.

Now, through her independent laboratory and new role at the Ragon Institute, Sokol is further expanding that work. The Sokol Lab will investigate the neuroimmune circuits that underlie allergic diseases, with a particular focus on how sensory neurons detect environmental allergens and help coordinate immune responses.

By exploring how the nervous and immune systems work together in the context of allergy, Sokol’s research aims to answer fundamental questions about why allergic disease develops and how those responses might be interrupted. This work could help lay the foundation for new therapies that not only treat symptoms, but also prevent allergic disease before it begins.

Sokol’s arrival strengthens the Ragon Institute’s commitment to cutting-edge discovery across immunology and human disease. Her research brings a valuable new dimension to the institute’s scientific community, combining deep mechanistic inquiry with a clear focus on patient impact.