Ragon Institute
May 22, 2013
The Ragon Institute of Mass General, MIT, and Harvard had the privilege to host the White House Office of National AIDS Policy (ONAP) last week. The Director of ONAP, Dr. Grant Colfax, and the Senior Program Manager of ONAP, James Albino, toured the Ragon lab space and then participated in a roundtable discussion about current […]
May 16, 2013
For the second year in a row, African scientists learned biostatistical methods with the ultimate goal of empowering them to be part of the solution to the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Biostatistics is the application of statistics to a wide range of topics in biology including medical research. The collection, summarization, and analysis of data from […]
May 7, 2013
The Ragon Institute is proud to launch the Penny Talks, a monthly seminar featuring Ragon/MGH faculty explaining, in layman’s terms, the vision behind their work. Few who met and worked with Penny Campbell could have forgotten her! Penny started at Ragon (then Partners AIDS Research Center) in 2001 as Grant Administrator to Drs. Walker and […]
May 6, 2013
On April 18, 2013, the HIV Pathogenesis Programme (HPP) graduated nine students from the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN) graduate program. Over the past recent years, the HPP program has consistently had students mentored by HPP and Ragon faculty represented in the UKZN College of Health Sciences graduation program, a culmination of a productive education partnership […]
Apr 25, 2013 Awards
A team of researchers led by Dr. Todd Allen of the Ragon Institute of Mass General, MIT, and Harvard was recently awarded a 5-year, $12.4 million HIV Vaccine Research and Design (HIVRAD) award from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The Ragon Institute is one of the institutions making Boston– with total grants of $1.78 […]
Apr 23, 2013
On a May afternoon in 2008, Bruce Walker and Terry Ragon [MIT Class of ] ‘71 paid a recruiting visit to MIT. Walker is a Harvard Medical School physician who has studied HIV for three decades; Ragon, the founder and CEO of a software company called InterSystems, was about to bankroll a new $100 million […]
Apr 9, 2013
Budding African scientists have an exciting new avenue through which they can enhance their research careers and further equip themselves to tackle the scientific challenges of our times, including two of the world’s most daunting public health challenges: TB and HIV. This week the KwaZulu-Natal Research Institute for TB and HIV (K-RITH), Massachusetts […]
Mar 25, 2013
“Decades of research and three large-scale clinical trials have so far failed to yield an effective HIV vaccine, in large part because the virus evolves so rapidly that it can evade vaccine-induced immune responses. Researchers from the Ragon Institute of Mass General, MIT, and Harvard University have now developed a new approach to vaccine […]
Mar 21, 2013 Ragon Culture
IDG’s Computerworld has honored Microsoft Research for their innovative approach to HIV research, applying the same high-powered computation systems which are used in spam filters to the problem of HIV. This work is a collaboration between Microsoft Research Distinguished Scientist, David Heckerman and Ragon Institute Director, Dr. Bruce Walker. In November 2011, Heckerman and […]
Mar 12, 2013 Ragon Culture
The Boston Globe today featured the Ragon Institute’s new lab space and highlights the potential impact of cuts in federal funding on HIV research: “A leading AIDS research center unveiled its new $30 million laboratory building in Cambridge Monday, where it aims to push ahead with efforts to develop an HIV vaccine and to […]
Mar 4, 2013
Recent news has reported a Mississippi child who was apparently “cured” of HIV by receiving treatment shortly after birth. Two years later, the child’s viral loads are undetectable, despite being off treatment for almost a year. Ragon Institute Principal Investigator Dr. Brian Zanoni speaks to NPR about what could have caused this and what […]
Feb 19, 2013 Ragon Culture
Ragon Institute Director, Dr. Bruce Walker, talks to Robert Tomsho and answers questions about the progress of HIV/AIDS research, three decades after the disease was first discovered. Dr. Walker addresses the value of philanthropy and how his work in South Africa has affected him. “… there’s a sense that the AIDS problem has been […]
Feb 12, 2013
Studying infectious diseases has long been primarily the domain of biologists. However, as part of the Ragon Institute, MIT engineers and physical scientists are joining immunologists and physicians in the battle against HIV, which currently infects 34 million people worldwide. The mission of the Ragon Institute — launched jointly in 2009 by Massachusetts General […]
Jan 31, 2013 Ragon Culture
This week the Ragon Institute has completed its move to 400 Technology Square, Cambridge. This new building space increases Ragon lab and office space significantly, providing a critical step forward in the research and recruitment capabilities of the Institute. Researchers, staff and collaborators will be housed in three and a half floors of office, […]
Dec 18, 2012 Awards
Ragon Institute graduate student, Dr. Jens Dinter, is one of five recipients for the Schering Foundation PhD fellowship. The Schering Foundation awards 2-year fellowships to outstanding graduate students who work in internationally leading research institutes and aims to support young scientists in their early careers. Jens Dinter’s PhD thesis project in the Le […]
Dec 5, 2012
Will those hard-working humanized mice help get us to an AIDS vaccine? Scientists are sounding more optimistic. “Allen led a recent study that caused a small stir in AIDS vaccine research circles. He and his colleagues found that BLT mice infected with HIV mounted cellular immune responses that closely mirrored those observed in HIV-infected […]