Principal Investigator
Core Member
Ragon Institute of Mass General, MIT, and Harvard
Assistant Professor of Medicine
Harvard Medical School
Assistant Investigator
Massachusetts General Hospital
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The Balazs lab focuses on applying this understanding to developing and implementing novel technologies that engineer immunity as a means of preventing or treating infection.
In the Balazs lab, we are scientists by training and engineers at heart. We are interested in exploring all facets of the host-pathogen interaction. Our model systems include HIV-1 and SARS-CoV-2, in which we examine mechanisms of immunological protection with a primary focus on the humoral immune system. We are equally interested in unraveling fundamental principles underlying the ability of pathogens like HIV-1 and SARS-CoV-2 to escape in response to immunological pressure. We achieve this mainly through vector-mediated gene transfer of antibody specificities, advanced humanized animal models of infection, and longitudinal deep sequencing to characterize and ultimately predict pathogen evolution.
The Balazs Lab has received the MGH Department of Medicine Transformative Scholars Program Award, the Gilead Sciences Research Scholars Program in HIV Award, and the NIH (DP2) NIDA Avenir New Innovator Award.
Dr. Balazs attended the University of California at Los Angeles, where he received a B.S. in Microbiology and Molecular Genetics with Honors in 1999. He then joined the graduate program at Harvard Medical School, where he earned a doctorate in 2006 before conducting postdoctoral research under the direction of Dr. David Baltimore at the California Institute of Technology.
Kerri St Denis
Research Technician I
Giacomo Gorini
Postdoctoral Fellow
Lok Joshi
Postdoctoral Fellow
Evan Lam
Research Technologist
Adam Nitido
Graduate Student
Meredith Phelps
Graduate Student
Alex Roederer
Graduate Student
Maegan Sheehan
Research Technician I
Our people are our greatest asset. We are committed to creating a supportive and inclusive environment that is welcoming for all.
The Ragon’s faculty includes many of the world’s most creative scientists, engineers, and clinicians.
The Ragon’s research creates knowledge from our collaborative, cross-disciplinary approach, breaking down the silos of academia.