Ragon Institute
Jun 12, 2012 Awards
K-RITH sponsored student, Ngomu Akeem Akilimali received 2nd Prize for the Best Research Paper Presentation awarded by Discovery at the 3rd National TB Conference held in Durban June 2012. His talk focused on how the HIV-induced upregulation of Leukocyte Immunoglobulin (Ig)-Like Receptors (LILRs) is abrogated in individuals co-infected with Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb). Much research […]
Jun 11, 2012
BOSTON – The rare ability of some individuals to control HIV infection with their immune system alone appears to depend – at least partially – on specific qualities of the immune system’s killer T cells and not on how many of those cells are produced. In a Nature Immunology paper receiving advance online publication, researchers […]
Jun 10, 2012
For 15 years, the Ragon Institute has shown their support for those fighting HIV/AIDS locally by raising funds and participating in the annual AIDS Walk Boston. AIDS Walk Boston is the primary fundraising event for AIDS Action Committee (AAC), the leading provider of HIV prevention and care services in Massachusetts. Prior to the […]
May 28, 2012 Awards
Dr. Marcus Altfeld, Ragon Institute Investigator, has been promoted to Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School (HMS). This appointment comes after many years of distinguished research both in Boston and South Africa. Dr. Altfeld received his MD and PhD from the University of Cologne, Germany. In 1999, he started his post-doctoral research work […]
May 15, 2012
May 7-11, 2012 the KwaZulu-Natal Research Institute for Tuberculosis and HIV (K-RITH), the Ragon Institute of Mass General, MIT, and Harvard, and the Harvard University Center for AIDS Research (CFAR) co-sponsored a biostatistics course in Durban, South Africa for the benefit of African scientists. Biostatistics is the application of statistics to a wide range […]
Apr 26, 2012 Awards
Dr. David Bangsberg receives prestigious A. Clifford Barger Excellence in Mentoring Award from the Harvard Medical School Office for Diversity Inclusion and Community Partnership.
Apr 18, 2012
On Monday, April 16, 2012, the HIV Pathogenesis Programme (HPP) at Doris Duke Medical Research Institute (DDMRI), part of the Nelson Mandela Medical School, University of KwaZulu Natal (UKZN) graduated 7 students– 5 PhDs and 2 Masters. It was a day of joyful celebration and great pride for everyone involved. The partnership between Ragon […]
Apr 5, 2012 Awards
Ragon Institute investigator Dr. Galit Alter receives Top 10 Clinical Research Achievement Awards from the Clinical Research Forum (CRF). “The CRF is a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing national leadership in clinical research. Its mission is to generate support for clinical research and promote understanding of its impact on health and healthcare delivery. […]
Apr 1, 2012
The Ragon Institute celebrated three years of innovation and excellence on March 2, 2012. All Ragon Institute faculty and staff and their families and guests, collaborators from multiple continents, as well as donors Terry and Susan Ragon and their family, gathered at Walker Memorial on the MIT campus to mark this anniversary. In […]
Mar 25, 2012
Ragon-affiliated researcher, Dr. Abraham Brass and his team find a gene that can transform mild influenza to a life threatening disease. “A genetic discovery could help explain why flu makes some people seriously ill or kills them, while others seem able to bat it away with little more than a few aches, coughs and […]
Mar 8, 2012
BOSTON – Mutations in HIV that develop during the first few weeks of infection may play a critical role in undermining a successful early immune response, a finding that reveals the importance of vaccines targeting regions of the virus that are less likely to mutate. A new study in the journal PLoS Pathogens, led by […]
Feb 29, 2012
A subpopulation of the immune cells targeted by HIV may play an important role in controlling viral loads after initial infection, potentially helping to determine how quickly infection will progress. In the February 29 issue of Science Translational Medicine, a team of researchers from the Ragon Institute of Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), MIT and Harvard […]
Feb 10, 2012
On Monday, February 6, 2012 the new President of Global Health for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Dr. Trevor Mundel, met with investigators from the Ragon Institute to learn about novel and cutting-edge research conducted at Ragon-affiliated laboratories. Prior to this meeting, Drs. Arup Chakraborty and Bruce Walker attended a breakfast with Dr. Mundel […]
Feb 4, 2012 Awards
Dr. Thumbi Ndung’u, Ragon Institute Associate Member, is awarded the prestigious Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) Early Career Scientist award. “Growing up in the rural village of Gathugu, Kiambu, in central Kenya, Thumbi Ndung’u routinely saw members of his community fight—and lose—the battle against many preventable diseases. Then AIDS emerged, seemingly out of nowhere, and […]
Jan 18, 2012
Philanthropists will sometimes give large sums of money to support science — but researchers have to learn how to sell themselves first. “Asking someone to give you a million dollars is not easy. In 1995, Bruce Walker was seeking philanthropic support to expand his HIV research programme at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. He had […]
Jan 18, 2012
With a daily focus on excellence, researchers at the Ragon Institute have pushed HIV research forward over the past year. During 2011, 43 individual Ragon scientists wrote and published 83 publications and many were promoted to faculty positions or won prestigious fellowship awards. Highlighted below are the top four accomplishments of 2011: […]