Ragon Institute
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 […]
Dec 1, 2012 Ragon Culture
Ragon Institute Director, Dr. Bruce Walker, along with AIDS Action’s President & CEO, Rebecca Haag and a large group of supporters from the Ragon Institute, were present for flipping the switch to turn the lights of the Prudential Building red in honor of World AIDS Day, December 1. images courtesy of AIDSAction/photographer Marilyn Humphries […]
Nov 30, 2012
For the past year, Ragon Institute faculty and staff have anticipated the completion of the renovation of five floors of research space at 400 Technology Square, Cambridge. Over the past few months considerable progress has been made, from cutting a hole in three floors to create a dramatic open staircase, to final painting and decorating […]
Nov 26, 2012
Ragon Institute Fellow, Maria Jose Buzon, PhD, was one of 20 young investigators selected to present their research at the 2012 National CFAR Scientific Symposium entitled “CFAR and HIV Therapy at 25: Seeking an End to AIDS” held in San Francisco November 7-9, 2012. Symposium organizers designed the program with an eye on featuring […]
Oct 12, 2012 Features
Ragon Institute Director Dr. Bruce Walker attended the event along with Massachusetts General Hospital President Dr. Peter Slavin , Senior VP for Research, Dr. Harry Orf, and Dr. Marylyn Addo, Director of International Programs for the Ragon Institute. On October 9, the new facility for the KwaZulu Natal Research Institute for TB and HIV (K-RITH) […]
Oct 9, 2012
“An international research consortium plans to begin testing four new HIV vaccines in 2014 in a province of South Africa where the infection rate is among the highest in the world. The unusual effort to test several vaccines nearly simultaneously reflects the difficulty of finding a way to prevent HIV infection, says Bruce Walker, […]
Sep 14, 2012 Ragon Culture
September 9 – 13, the Ragon Institute and the Harvard Center for AIDS Research (Harvard CFAR) co-hosted AIDS Vaccine 2012, the world’s largest and most prestigious global scientific conference focused exclusively on HIV vaccine research. Watch a webcast of the event Download meeting agenda (pdf) The annual international conference brought […]
Sep 10, 2012 Ragon Culture
On Sept 6, 2012, the Ragon Institute International Program and the Education Program hosted Global Camps Africa at the Charlestown laboratories. Global Camps Africa is an educative program developed by Phil Lilienthal in South Africa. These 8-day camps provide education, life skills and support to HIV-affected kids and teens near Soweto. Five South […]
Sep 1, 2012
In 1989, Bruce Walker, an infectious disease specialist at Massachusetts General Hospital, sifted through a tall stack of applications for a technician’s job in his lab. He immediately noticed the application from Alicja Trocha, a recent immigrant from Poland who had joined the anti-Communist Solidarity movement as a student in the 1980s. Trocha had worked […]
Aug 23, 2012
“Mice can tell us a great deal about disease. But they’ve been of limited use in AIDS research because only humans get HIV. Now, researchers have transplanted human bone marrow into mice that lack a functioning immune system. The mice then developed a human immune system, according to Ragon Institute immunologist Todd Allen. He and […]
Aug 21, 2012
The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health, has awarded 14 grants totaling $7.8 million in first-year funding for basic research to identify new approaches for designing a safe and effective HIV vaccine. The grants were awarded under the Innovation for HIV Vaccine Discovery (IHVD) initiative, which […]