Ragon Institute

04/03/2026

We are pleased to welcome Jennie Ruelas Castillo and Jonathan Padilla Gómez as the inaugural FEMSA Fellows at the Ragon Institute. This fellowship, part of our partnership with Tecnológico de Monterrey and supported by FEMSA, allows postdoctoral researchers who have conducted studies in Mexico to pursue immunology research at the Ragon in Cambridge, MA.

Ruelas Castillo is a member of the Barczak Lab, where she focuses on tuberculosis immunology, while Padilla Gómez is part of the Bryson Lab, where he is studying how TB persists within human immune cells. Both bring deep expertise in microbiology and infectious disease research.

This partnership reflects our shared commitment to strengthening research ties between Mexico and the United States and building the next generation of leaders in global health.

Learn more here: https://ragoninstitute.org/tecnologico-de-monterrey-fellowship-at-the-ragon-institute/

04/01/2026

Last week we welcomed 9th grade students from the Cambridge Housing Authority to the Ragon for career conversations. Volunteers from across the institute sat down with students for informational interviews, sharing what they do, how they got here, and lessons learned along the way.

Thank you to the CHA team, our Office of Education & Outreach who organized this event, and all our volunteers for making this a great afternoon.

03/27/2026

A new study from the Kwon Lab at the Ragon Institute, published in Cell Host & Microbe, provides the most detailed picture yet of how a promising bacterial therapy works to prevent recurrent bacterial vaginosis (BV) and why it works better for some women than others.

BV is the most common vaginal condition worldwide, affecting more than 25% of reproductive-age women and disproportionately impacting women of lower socioeconomic status and members of racial and ethnic minority groups.

“This study’s results offer key insights for vaginal health,” says Seth Bloom, MD, PhD, the paper’s co-first author who began the research as a postdoctoral trainee in the Kwon Lab and has since established his own lab. “Our results offer a roadmap to guide development and use of LACTIN-V and similar live biotherapeutic products to improve the health of the millions of women worldwide who experience BV.”

Read More: https://ragoninstitute.org/2026/03/kwon-lab-study-reveals-how-a-live-bacterial-therapy-reshapes-the-vaginal-microbiome-and-identifies-predictors-of-treatment-success/

03/24/2026

The Ragon Institute of Mass General Brigham, MIT, and Harvard is seeking exceptional early-career scientists to join our mission to advance immunology and global health research.

We currently have three postdoctoral positions available:
◾ Postdoctoral Research Fellow – Barczak Lab
◾ Research Fellow in Computational Biology – DeKosky Lab
◾ Postdoctoral Research Fellow – Yu/Lichterfeld Labs

Our fellowship programs are designed to foster innovation and professional development through interdisciplinary collaboration with renowned researchers across our founding institutions. If you are a recent PhD graduate ready to push the boundaries of immunology and global health, we encourage you to apply.

Applications are handled by individual labs. Visit the link here to learn more: https://ragoninstitute.org/fellowships/

03/18/2026

The Ragon Institute is proud to announce the 2026 Giuliani Scholars: Amy Barczak, Gaurav Gaiha, Douglas Kwon, and Sophia Liu.

Supported by the Giammaria and Sabrina Giuliani Faculty Support Fund, these four scientists are advancing critical research in HIV vaccine development, post-infectious lung disease, the vaginal microbiome's role in HIV prevention, and immune cell coordination within tissues. We are grateful to the Giuliani family for their continued partnership in driving global health forward.

Read More: https://ow.ly/jqsS50YvxC1

03/13/2026

We are excited to welcome Caroline Sokol, MD, PhD, to the Ragon Institute as a new faculty member!

A physician-scientist and leader in allergy and immunology, Sokol studies how the immune system recognizes and responds to allergens, with the goal of developing new therapies to treat and prevent allergic disease. Her lab investigates the neuroimmune circuits underlying allergic disease, with a focus on how sensory neurons detect environmental allergens and coordinate immune responses.

At the Ragon, Sokol will lead the Sokol Lab while also serving as an Assistant Physician at Massachusetts General Hospital and an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School.

Please join us in welcoming Dr. Sokol to the Ragon community.

03/10/2026

The Ragon PRISM Science Club is back for 2026!

PRISM (Program of Ragon and IMES in Science and Medicine) is our outreach program for high school students from underrepresented communities in the Greater Boston area, meeting on Saturdays in March and April for 8 weeks.

The program, launched in 2022, is a joint effort between the Ragon Institute, MIT's Institute for Medical Engineering and Science (IMES), and the Harvard-MIT Program in Health Sciences and Technology (HST), housed at IMES. Each week features a different program, with a talk, discussion, and an activity facilitated by graduate students from IMES/HST and Ragon researchers.

Pictured is this year's cohort with Ragon founding director Bruce Walker, MD, on the grand staircase in the Ragon lobby. We are delighted to welcome these students and grateful for all of our collaborators on this program.

Interested in learning more about PRISM or our other Education & Outreach Programs? Head to the link here: https://ragoninstitute.org/education-outreach/

03/06/2026

A new study from the Ghebremichael Lab at the Ragon Institute, published in the Biometrical Journal, introduces a statistical method that evaluates biologically linked outcomes jointly rather than relying on separate analyses that ignore their interdependence. The researchers demonstrated their methodology using data from a longitudinal pediatric HIV study examining the efficacy of antiretroviral therapy (ART).

This work provides researchers and clinicians with a new statistical framework and accompanying software tool for evaluating correlated outcomes. Although HIV data was used in this study, the method and software are broadly applicable to any setting involving interconnected outcomes.

Read More: https://ragoninstitute.org/2026/03/new-statistical-method-from-ghebremichael-lab-improves-evaluation-of-hiv-treatment-outcomes/

02/27/2026

Applications are now open for the Tecnológico de Monterrey Fellowship and the FEMSA Fellowship at the Ragon Institute!

These fellowships offer an exceptional opportunity for postdoctoral researchers who completed their graduate training at Tecnológico de Monterrey or other research institutes in Mexico to join one of the world's leading immunology research centers. The Tecnológico de Monterrey Fellowship provides three years of stipend support, while the FEMSA Fellowship covers one year with the possibility of renewal. Both place fellows in a Ragon Institute laboratory with access to state-of-the-art facilities and a deeply collaborative research environment in Cambridge, MA.

We welcome applicants from a wide range of disciplines, including immunology, biochemistry, structural biology, computational statistics, AI, and health-oriented engineering.

This is an excellent chance to be part of a growing partnership strengthening research ties between Mexico and the United States. Applications are due March 31, 2026.

Learn more and apply:

Current Fellows

02/25/2026

A new study from the Balazs Lab at the Ragon Institute, published in Immunity, demonstrates that HIV escapes broadly neutralizing antibodies (bNAbs) through a limited set of conserved mutation paths, and that manipulating the cost of those paths can dramatically improve therapeutic outcomes.

"By studying the mutations the virus makes during selection by these antibodies, we find that the ease or difficulty of escape paths available to the virus are the real drivers of success or failure during treatment,” said principal investigator and corresponding author Alejandro Balazs, PhD.

“We believe this insight will be crucial for the development of future HIV therapies that employ combinations of antibodies that can exert orthogonal selective pressure on the virus to produce the check-mate conditions needed to continuously suppress HIV as a functional cure".

Read More: https://ragoninstitute.org/2026/02/balazs-lab-study-reveals-hiv-escapes-antibody-therapy-through-predictable-paths-and-blocking-them-can-achieve-sustained-viral-suppression/

02/20/2026

"I don't have a clue why I'm here." "Well, I really don't have a clue why you're here either."

Sometimes the most meaningful partnerships begin with the most unlikely introductions. When Ragon Institute Founding Director Bruce Walker, MD, met entrepeneur and philanthropist Phillip 'Terry' Ragon, neither knew why they'd been brought together. But a shared trip to South Africa, where Terry witnessed firsthand how HIV had overwhelmed hospitals and communities, changed everything.

Terry asked Bruce a simple question: What would it take to solve this? Bruce's answer: bring together the best minds at Harvard, MIT, and Mass General to make an HIV vaccine. Terry's response was to commit the funding to make it happen.

That conversation became the Ragon Institute, built on the belief that collaboration across disciplines could tackle one of humanity's greatest health challenges.

Watch Bruce and Terry share the story of how it all began. 🎥

02/18/2026

A multi-institutional study published in Science Immunology, led by the Batista Lab at the Ragon Institute, in collaboration with researchers at University of Pennsylvania, Scripps Research Institute, Columbia University, MIT, and others, demonstrates that a single immunization can rapidly generate antibodies capable of neutralizing a broad range of HIV strains, thereby offering a potential path toward simpler HIV vaccine regimens.

Read more: https://ragoninstitute.org/2026/02/single-immunization-produces-broad-hiv-neutralization-in-mouse-model-pointing-to-simpler-vaccine-strategies/