Ragon Institute
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 […]
Aug 20, 2012
Ragon Institute Program Leader Dr. Dan Barouch has been named Director of the Center for Virology and Vaccine Research (CVVR) in the Department of Medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC). “This newly created Center represents the merger of the former Division of Viral Pathogenesis and Division of Vaccine Research. Barouch, a Professor […]
Jun 27, 2012 Awards
Ragon Institute Research Fellow, Filippos Porichis, Ph.D is one of ten recipients of the 2012 Global Infectious Disease Travel Grant from the Harvard Center for Global Health. Dr. Porichis’ project was entitled “Immunoregulatory networks governing MTB and HIV-specific T cell function in HIV/MTB co-infection” and he aims to use the grant to support his […]
Jun 20, 2012
As part of the Ragon Institute’s ongoing commitment to education, the week of May 14-18 saw Ragon hosting international students from Spain and Chile. During the week, 8 Masters/PhD students from Spain and 3 high school students from Chile met with Ragon faculty and shadowed postdoctoral fellows. Three of the eight visiting students […]
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 […]