Category Archives: research

Scientists from the Ragon Institute of MGH, MIT and Harvard, led by Dr. Aaron Schmidt, Assistant Professor of Microbiology, have partnered with the Duke Human Vaccine Institute (DHVI) on a nation-wide, multidisciplinary program to develop a more universally protective influenza vaccine.   The Collaborative Influenza Vaccine Innovation Centers (CIVICs) program, driven and supported by the […]

Ragon Institute harnesses new knowledge about HIV to reinvent immunology   Mary Todd Bergman | Harvard Correspondent   Originally posted on The Harvard Gazette, September 19, 2019   With a promising HIV vaccine already in clinical trials, and research revealing how some people can naturally control HIV without medications, the Ragon Institute of MGH, MIT, […]

Article originally published on Cell Press, Immunity, September 25, 2019 DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.immuni.2019.09.001 Cambridge, MA. A team of researchers led by Dr. Daniel Lingwood from the Ragon Institute of MGH, MIT and Harvard have investigated how Human broadly neutralizing antibodies (bnAbs) against influenza virus can be biased for VHgene usage, suggesting gene-encoded development pathways. Sangesland et al. […]

News from the HPI Monday, 29. July 2019 Hamburg. A scientific team from the Research Department of Virus Immunology at the Heinrich Pette Institute, Leibniz Institute for Experimental Virology (HPI) has investigated the binding of NK cell receptors to HLA class II molecules. The results have now been published in the renowned journal “Nature Immunology”. […]

Could early treatment with antiretroviral (ARV) therapy help the body fight off HIV? Researchers affiliated with the Sub-Saharan African Network for TB/HIV Research Excellence (SANTHE) are convinced that early ARV therapy is critical to the treatment of HIV.   Researchers at the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN) in Durban, South Africa are conducting studies they believe […]

Super-charging a treatment for leukemia also makes it effective on solid tumors. Anne Trafton | MIT News Office A promising new way to treat some types of cancer is to program the patient’s own T cells to destroy the cancerous cells. This approach, termed CAR-T cell therapy, is now used to combat some types of […]

Ragon Institute-led study identifies factors contributing to placental transfer of antibodies CAMBRIDGE, Mass. – One of the most successful interventions in reducing infectious disease worldwide, vaccination still has limited effectiveness in protecting one group of patients – newborn infants. Now a study based at the Ragon Institute of MGH, MIT and Harvard has determined how […]

Ragon Institute study findings could pave the way to vaccine development CAMBRIDGE, Mass. – Instituting combination antiretroviral (ART) treatment at the earliest stages of HIV infection may allow the generation of functional CD8 “killer” T cells and preservation of the CD4 helper T cells that are the virus’s primary target.  Investigators from the Ragon Institute […]

Tuberculosis (TB) is the leading infectious cause of death worldwide, and is caused by the slow growing bacterium Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb). Because the time between infection and disease can be long – years or even decades – a major challenge for public health is knowing who is at risk for becoming ill so that they […]

T-cell targeting of essential amino acids may underlie spontaneous HIV suppression, define path to a vaccine CAMBRIDGE, Mass. – Investigators at the Ragon Institute of MGH, MIT and Harvard have used a novel approach to identify specific amino acids in the protein structure of HIV that appear critical to the ability of the virus to […]