Kwon Lab

Mucosal Immunology, Microbiome, HIV, Clinical Research, Emerging Infectious Diseases

Lab Overview

The Kwon Lab studies the roles of both the gut and the female genital tract in HIV acquisition and disease progression. We are involved in several long-term patient cohort studies, including Females Rising Through Education, Support, and Health (FRESH.) We work closely with research collaborators in South Africa, such as the University of KwaZulu-Natal HIV Pathogenesis Programme and the Center for the AIDS Programme of Research in South Africa.

The Kwon Lab employs novel technologies to further the understanding of mucosal immune responses in gut-associated lymphoid tissue (GALT) and the female genital tract. We work to determine the viral dynamics in mucosal and peripheral compartments in chronic HIV infection. We characterize the mechanism by which HIV impairs mucosal lung responses against Tuberculosis, and also the effects of the microbiome on mucosal immune responses in controlled versus chronic HIV infection.

Lab Website

Douglas S. Kwon, MD, PhD

Principal Investigator

Affiliation

Core Member, Ragon Institute of Mass General, MIT, and Harvard
Associate Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School

About

Dr. Kwon received his undergraduate degree in biochemistry from Harvard University and his MD and Ph.D from New York University, where he studied with Dan Littman. He then trained in internal medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, and New York Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center. He completed his training in the combined fellowship program in infectious disease at Massachusetts General Hospital and Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Doug is an Associate Professor at Harvard Medical School, Associate Physician at Massachusetts General Hospital, and Scientific Co-Founder at Day Zero Diagnostics.

Recognition & Honors

Received the 2017 NIAID Top Women’s Health Science Advances and 2018 Nominee Trailblazer Prize for Clinician-Scientists, Foundation for the National Institutes of Health
Member of the American Medical Association since 2004
Member of the Infectious Disease Society of America and the Massachusetts Infectious Disease Society since 2006
Member of the American Association of Immunologists since 2011
2020 Inductee to the American Society for Clinical Investigation

Related Research Foci

Computational Science
Fundamental Immunology
Global Health

Mucosal Immunology
FRESH
Infectious Disease Pathogenesis

View All +

Related Areas of Study

COPD
Endometriosis
HIV

Human papillomavirus
Infectious Disease
Vaginal Dysbiosis
Pre-Term Birth

View All +

Looking for Collaboration?

Selected Publications

Abrupt perturbation and delayed recovery of the vaginal ecosystem following childbirth

Costello EK, DiGiulio DB, Robaczewska A, Symul L, Wong RJ, Shaw GM, Stevenson DK, Holmes SP, Kwon DS, Relman DA.

Nat Commun. 2023 Jul 12;14(1):4141.

July 12, 2023

PMID: 37438386

Efficient Nucleic Acid Extraction and 16S rRNA Gene Sequencing for Bacterial Community Characterization – Journal of Visualized Experiments

Anahtar MN, Bowman BA, Kwon DS.

Journal of visualized experiments: JoVE. 2016; (110).

January 1, 2016

PMID: 27168460

Screening and characterization of vaginal fluid donations for vaginal microbiota transplantation – Scientific Reports

Yockey LJ, Hussain FA, Bergerat A, Reissis A, Worrall D, Xu J, Gomez I, Bloom SM, Mafunda NA, Kelly J, Kwon DS, Mitchell CM.

Sci Rep . 2022 Oct 26;12(1):17948.

October 26, 2022

PMID: 36289360

Vaginal microbiome-host interactions modeled in a human vagina-on-a-chip

Mahajan G, Doherty E, To T, Sutherland A, Grant J, Junaid A, Gulati A, LoGrande N, Izadifar Z, Timilsina SS, Horváth V, Plebani R, France M, Hood-Pishchany I, Rakoff-Nahoum S, Kwon DS, Goyal G, Prantil-Baun R, Ravel J, Ingber DE.

Microbiome. 2022 Nov 26;10(1):201.

November 26, 2022

PMID: 36434666

Tobacco smoke exposure recruits inflammatory airspace monocytes that establish permissive lung niches for Mycobacterium tuberculosis

Corleis B, Tzouanas CN, Wadsworth MH 2nd, Cho JL, Linder AH, Schiff AE, Zessin B, Stei F, Dorhoi A, Dickey AK, Medoff BD, Shalek AK, Kwon DS.

Sci Transl Med. 2023 Dec 6;15(725):eadg3451.

December 6, 2023

PMID: 38055798

HIV-associated gut microbial alterations are dependent on host and geographic context

Rocafort M, Gootenberg DB, Luévano JM Jr, Paer JM, Hayward MR, Bramante JT, Ghebremichael MS, Xu J, Rogers ZH, Munoz AR, Okello S, Kim JH, Sentongo R, Wagubi R, Lankowski A, Maruapula S, Zhao G, Handley SA, Mosepele M, Siedner MJ, Kwon DS.

Nat Commun. 2024 Feb 5;15(1):1055.

February 5, 2024

PMID: 38316748

Cervicovaginal bacteria are a major modulator of host inflammatory responses in the female genital tract

Anahtar MN, Byrne EH, Doherty KE, Bowman BA, Yamamoto HS, Soumillon M, Padavattan N, Ismail N, Moodley A, Sabatini ME, Ghebremichael MS, Nusbaum C, Huttenhower C, Virgin HW, Ndung’u T, Dong KL, Walker BD, Fichorova RN, Kwon DS.

Immunity. 2015; 42(5):965-76. NIHMSID: NIHMS689549

January 1, 2015

Association between injectable progestin-only contraceptives and HIV acquisition and HIV target cell frequency in the female genital tract in South African women: a prospective cohort study

Byrne EH, Anahtar MN, Cohen KE, Moodley A, Padavattan N, Ismail N, Bowman BA, Olson GS, Mabhula A, Leslie A, Ndung’u T, Walker BD, Ghebremichael MS, Dong KL, Kwon DS.

The Lancet. Infectious diseases. 2016; 16(4):441-8. NIHMSID: NIHMS844271

January 1, 2016

View All +

857-269-7009

[email protected]

Rm. 893

Name(Required)

First Last

Email(Required)

Enter Email Confirm Email

Comments(Required)