Engineering Immunity Against Infectious Disease

Research Overview

The Balazs lab focuses on applying this understanding to developing and implementing novel technologies that engineer immunity as a means of preventing or treating infection.

In the Balazs lab, we are scientists by training and engineers at heart. We are interested in exploring all facets of the host-pathogen interaction. Our model systems include HIV-1 and SARS-CoV-2, in which we examine mechanisms of immunological protection with a primary focus on the humoral immune system. We are equally interested in unraveling fundamental principles underlying the ability of pathogens like HIV-1 and SARS-CoV-2 to escape in response to immunological pressure.  We achieve this mainly through vector-mediated gene transfer of antibody specificities, advanced humanized animal models of infection, and longitudinal deep sequencing to characterize and ultimately predict pathogen evolution.

Recognition and Media

The Balazs Lab has received the MGH Department of Medicine Transformative Scholars Program Award, the Gilead Sciences Research Scholars Program in HIV Award, and the NIH (DP2) NIDA Avenir New Innovator Award and NIH (DP1) NIDA Avant Garde Award and multiple research project (R01) grants.

About

Dr. Balazs attended the University of California at Los Angeles, where he received a B.S. in Microbiology and Molecular Genetics with Honors in 1999. He then joined the graduate program at Harvard Medical School, where he earned a doctorate in 2006 before conducting postdoctoral research under the direction of Dr. David Baltimore at the California Institute of Technology.