Daniel Kavanagh Lab - The Ragon Institute of MGH, MIT and Harvard

Kavanagh Lab

Principal Investigator:Daniel Kavanagh, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School
Assistant Immunologist, Massachusetts General Hospital
Lab staff: Postdoctoral Fellows: Janine Rohrbach, Ph.D. and Yovana Pacheco Neiva, Ph.D. / Tecnicians: Anna McLean and Oliver Davis
Contact: phone: (617)726-0788 / dkavanagh@partners.org / download Dr. Kavanagh's CV (pdf)

Current News:

Kavanagh Receives $100,000 Grant from Gates Foundation
Grand Challenges Explorations Grant will advance ground-breaking research in Global Health and Development
read more / press release

Research in our lab is focused on infection and antigen presentation and processing by myeloid dendritic cells and macrophages in the context of viral infections, and vaccination. One major interest is immune and non-immune factors affecting HIV replication in macrophages. In collaboration with the Kaufmann lab, Postdoctoral fellow Marta Rodríguez-García is studying expression and function of inhibitory ligands such as PD-L1 and PD-L2, on HIV-infection. We have a current opening for a Research Technician to work on this and related projects.

In pursuit of better ways to monitor HIV replication, we became early adopters of new technology for visualizing individual RNA molecules in fixed cells. An example of this work is featured on the April 2011 cover of AIDS Research and Human Retroviruses.

A related endeavor is understanding how professional antigen presenting cells can be harnessed to create better vaccines. One of our projects, in collaboration with the Irvine lab, is focused on delivery of nucleic-acid loaded nanoparticles for development of experimental vaccines in animal models.

Dr. Kavanagh is the also the Assistant Director of the MGH Immunotherapy Lab, under Director Rajesh Gandhi. The MGH Immunotherapy Lab is currently conducting a Phase I clinical immunotherapy trial of an experimental vaccine using autologous monocyte-derived dendritic cells transfected with synthetic RNA. The MGH Immunotherapy Lab has an open position for a Research Technologist. Please contact Dr. Kavanagh for more information.

2011 presentations from Kavanagh Lab
		Rodríguez-García, M. “Antigen-specific Suppression and Antigen-nonspecific Enhancement of HIV Replication in Macrophages by CD8 T cells,” 18th Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections, Boston, MA, February 27- March 3, 2011. (Selected oral abstract.)
		Weng, Q., “Sensitive and Specific in situ Imaging of HIV gag-pol RNA by Confocal Microscopy Using the QuantiGene ViewRNA System,” 18th Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections, Boston, MA, February 27- March 3, 2011. (Poster presentation)
Selected Publications Related to Current Projects:
PubMed search for Kavanagh DG
	1.	Rodríguez-García, M., F. Porichis, O.G. de Jong, K. Levi, T.J. Diefenbach, J.D. Lifson, G.J. Freeman, B.D. Walker, D.E. Kaufmann, and D.G. Kavanagh. 2011. Expression of PD-L1 and PD-L2 on human macrophages is up-regulated by HIV-1 and differentially modulated by IL-10. Journal of Leukocyte Biology. In press.
	2.	Su, X., J. Fricke, D. Kavanagh, and D. Irvine. 2011, In vitro and in vivo mRNA delivery using lipid-enveloped pH-responsive polymer nanoparticles. Molecular Pharmaceutics, in press.
	3.	Ngumbela, K.C., K. P. Ryan, R. Sivamurthy, M. A. Brockman, R. T. Gandhi, N. Bhardwaj, and D. G. Kavanagh. 2008. Quantitative effect of suboptimal codon usage on translational efficiency of mRNA encoding HIV-1 gag in intact T cells. PLoS One. 3: e2356
	4.	Kaufmann, D. E. , D. G. Kavanagh, F. Pereyra, J. J. Zaunders, E. W. Mackey, T. Miura, S. Palmer, M. Brockman, A. Rathod, A. Piechocka-Trocha, B. Baker, B. Zhu, S. Le Gall, M. T. Waring, R. Ahern, K. Moss, A. D. Kelleher, J. M. Coffin, G. J. Freeman, E. S. Rosenberg, and B. D. Walker. 2007. Upregulation of CTLA-4 by HIV-specific CD4(+) T cells correlates with disease progression and defines a reversible immune dysfunction. Nature Immunology 8:1246.
	5.	Lichterfeld, M., D. G. Kavanagh, K. L. Williams, B. Moza, S. K. Mui, T. Miura, R. Sivamurthy, R. Allgaier, F. Pereyra, A. Trocha, M. Feeney, R. T. Gandhi, E. S. Rosenberg, M. Altfeld, T. M. Allen, R. Allen, B. D. Walker, E. J. Sundberg, and X. G. Yu. 2007. A viral CTL escape mutation leading to immunoglobulin-like transcript 4-mediated functional inhibition of myelomonocytic cells. Journal of Experimental Medicine 204:2813.
	6.	Kavanagh, D. G., D. E. Kaufmann, S. Sunderji, N. Frahm, S. Le Gall, D. Boczkowski, E. S. Rosenberg, D. R. Stone, M. N. Johnston, B. S. Wagner, M. T. Zaman, C. Brander, E. Gilboa, B. D. Walker, and N. Bhardwaj. 2006. Expansion of HIV-specific CD4+ and CD8+ T cells by dendritic cells transfected with mRNA encoding cytoplasm- or lysosome-targeted Nef. Blood 107:1963.