T cells, Vaccines, & Immune Control

Research Overview

The overarching goal of the Gaiha Lab is to translate insights from successful human T cell responses into effective T cell-based vaccines for infectious disease and cancer.

The Gaiha Lab is working to establish a T cell vaccine platform that incorporates target epitope identification, HLA-epitope stability assessments, T cell immunogen design, viral vector production, and iterative testing in small animal models. We work with a structure-based network analysis technology, which integrates network theory with protein structure data to define topologically important and mutationally constrained regions of viral proteins. We utilized this approach to identify key targets of CD8+ T cells in individuals who spontaneously control HIV (Gaiha et al., Science 2019) and, more recently, identify mutation-resistant epitopes in SARS-CoV-2 (Nathan, Rossin, et al., 2021). The overarching goal is to integrate these technologies towards developing prophylactic and therapeutic vaccines for HIV and SARS-CoV-2 and ultimately for broad translation to infectious diseases and cancer.  

Recognition and Media

Dr. Gaiha has been awarded the NIAID New Innovators DP2 Award and has been recognized as a Gilead HIV Research Scholar. He has also been named a Burroughs Wellcome Career Award for Medical Scientists and has been awarded the CHAVD (NIH) and CAVD (Gates Foundation) New Investigator Awards.

About

Dr. Gaiha received his D.Phil in Biochemistry from Oxford University as a Clarendon Scholar and his MD magna cum laude from the Health Sciences and Technology (HST) program at Harvard Medical School and MIT. He trained in Internal Medicine and Gastroenterology at MGH before completing his post-doctoral research fellowship at the Ragon Institute.