Date: May 17, 2022 By: Emily Makowski
Researchers including Galit Alter, Boris Juelg, and Alex Shalek have just been awarded a five-year, over $12 million grant from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases’ Human Immunology Project Consortium (HIPC) to study the immunology of pregnancy. This is the first time in the grant’s 12-year history that a project on immunology of pregnancy has been funded. Congratulations all!
The team’s project, the Maternal ‘Omics to Maximize Immunity (MOMI) study, will map a “Pregnancy Immune Atlas” that will give insight into optimal vaccination timing and reveal how immune system variations in pregnancy may lead to different health outcomes. The results of this work, conducted in collaboration with researchers from MGH, MIT, and Penn Medicine, will ultimately lead to healthcare improvements for pregnant individuals and babies.
Read the full press release from Penn Medicine: https://www.pennmedicine.org/news/news-releases/2022/may/12-million-grant-propels-research-of-immune-systems-of-pregnant-individuals
Their findings, to be published in Cell next month, reveal how the virus manipulates immune system processes to avoid destruction by natural killer (NK) cells, a type of white blood cell that is crucial for fighting viral infections.
The lab of the Ragon Institute faculty member Hernandez Moura Silva, PhD, recently published a review in Science Immunology regarding resident tissue macrophages (RTMs), shedding light on their multifaceted roles in organ health.
After three years off due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Ragon-MIT course HST.434 returned this January to provide 24 students a once in a lifetime learning experience