Category Archives: research

Researchers from the Kwon Lab at the Ragon Institute have published findings which indicate that HIV acquisition is up to 3.5 times higher in South African women using injectable progestin-only contraceptives (IPCs). IPCs are the most common form of contraception used in sub-Saharan Africa and are common in some areas of high HIV incidence.   […]

NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J., – July, 2, 2015 – Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ) announced Thursday that scientists at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC), Crucell Holland B.V, one of the Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies of Johnson & Johnson (Janssen), and several other collaborators today published results from a preclinical study of an HIV vaccine regimen used […]

Investigators from Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and the Ragon Institute of MGH, MIT and Harvard have added another piece to the puzzle of how a small group of individuals known as elite controllers are able to control HIV infection without drug treatment. In their paper published in the open-access journal PLOS Pathogens, the research team […]

Most common bacterial community in healthy South African women may increase presence of T cells targeted by HIV   A team led by researchers from Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and the Ragon Institute of MGH, MIT and Harvard has found that the most common bacterial community in the genital tract among healthy South Africa women […]

Scientists from the Ragon Institute participate in the development of a novel technology to facilitate the study of immune responses at the single cell level.   BOSTON – In a manuscript published this month in Nature Communications, a group of scientists from the Ragon Institute of MGH, MIT and Harvard and the CHUM Research Center […]

The most critical barrier for curing HIV-1 infection is the presence of the viral reservoir, the cells in which the HIV virus can lie dormant for many years and avoid elimination by antiretroviral drugs. Very little has been known about when and where the viral reservoir is established during acute HIV-1 infection, or the extent […]

Investigators from Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and the Ragon Institute of MGH, MIT and Harvard have learned more about one way the immune systems of elite controllers – those rare individuals able to control HIV infection without drug treatment – block a key step in the virus’s life cycle. In a paper appearing in Cell […]

The Ragon Institute fosters an environment that breaks down silos between different fields of science. This has allowed Dr. Brad Jones, Ragon Institute post-doctoral fellow, to move forwards with an idea that takes an innovative technology developed in the laboratory of Dr. Darrell Irvine for the treatment of cancer, and to combine it with the […]

Dr. Eileen Scully, M.D., Ph.D. of Massachusetts General Hospital and the Ragon Institute has been awarded funding from amfAR’s Research Consortium on HIV Eradication (ARCHE) program.   Founded in 1985, amfAR, one of the world’s leading nonprofit organizations, is dedicated to ending the global AIDS epidemic through innovative research. The ARCHE program was launched in […]

NIH Grantees Sharpen Understanding of Antibodies that May Cut Risk of HIV Infection   What immune response should a vaccine elicit to prevent HIV infection? Two studies bring scientists closer to answering this question by identifying previously unrecognized attributes of antibodies that appear to have reduced the risk of HIV infection in the clinical trial […]