Ragon Institute

Home
United States
Cambridge, MA
Ragon Institute

Harnessing the immune system to prevent and cure disease.

06/01/2026

On May 20th, the Ragon Institute of Mass General Brigham, MIT, and Harvard welcomed the board of trustees and senior leadership of the Mexican university Tecnológico de Monterrey as part of a multi-day visit to Boston.

Ragon Institute Director Bruce D Walker, MD, hosted the delegation for conversations on immunology, global health, and the training of early-career scientists, reaffirming a partnership built on the shared conviction that research and education drive progress in Mexico, Latin America, and beyond.

Alison Ringel, PhD, and José Carlos Crispín, MD, PhD, provided an update on joint faculty research on metabolic health in the US and Mexico. And Tecnológico de Monterrey Fellows Aurelio Orta and Felipe Salazar and FEMSA Fellows Jennie Ruelas and Jonathan Padilla shared their experiences of working as postdoctoral researchers at the Ragon.

We look forward to continuing to advance this collaboration in the years ahead.

05/27/2026

We are thrilled to share that Facundo Batista, PhD, Scientific and Associate Director of the Ragon Institute, has been elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences and one of the oldest and most prestigious scientific institutions in the world.

Founded in 1660, the Royal Society counts Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin, Albert Einstein, and Dorothy Hodgkin among its historic Fellows. Facundo joins a 2026 cohort of more than 90 newly elected researchers from around the world.

Congratulations, Dr. Batista, on this remarkable and well-deserved recognition.

Read more about the award here: https://ragoninstitute.org/2026/05/ragon-scientific-director-facundo-batista-phd-elected-fellow-of-the-royal-society/

05/26/2026

Kerrie Collette, a senior grants administrator at the Ragon Institute, has received the National Council of University Research Administrators (NCURA) Emerging Excellence Award.
The award recognizes Kerrie's development of the Portfolio Workload Index (PWI), a data-driven tool that quantifies the complexity of research administration portfolios using factors like proposal volume, deliverables, budget size, and PI complexity. The PWI has enabled more equitable workload distribution across the Ragon's grant administration team and informed staffing strategy and succession planning.

Learn more about the award: https://www.ncura.edu/MembershipVolunteering/Awards/ncuraemergingexcellenceaward.aspx

05/21/2026

This June, a new cohort of high school and undergraduate students from across Greater Boston will spend their summer at the Ragon Institute as part of RISE — the Ragon Institute Summer Experience.

RISE is a paid, mentored internship that pairs students from communities with economic need with Ragon faculty labs, immersing them in real research alongside scientists working on some of today's most pressing questions in immunology and human health. Interns gain hands-on lab experience, take an introductory immunology course taught by Ragon graduate students, and join workshops on college and career planning, all while building a community of peers and mentors.

For many of these students, RISE is a first window into what a career in science can look like, and the kind of early exposure that can shape the next generation of researchers.

Learn more about RISE and why this program matters: https://ragoninstitute.org/rise-ragon-institute-summer-experience/

05/19/2026

Get to know the Ragon Institute's inaugural FEMSA Fellows, Jennie Ruelas Castillo, PhD, and Jonathan Padilla Gómez, PhD.

In our latest Q&A, both fellows discuss their paths to the Ragon, their tuberculosis research in the Barczak Lab and Bryson Lab, and what it means to be part of a fellowship strengthening scientific collaboration between Mexico and the United States.

The FEMSA Fellowship, part of a broader partnership between the Ragon Institute and Tecnológico de Monterrey, supports postdoctoral researchers who completed their studies at research institutions in Mexico.

Read the full Q&A: https://ragoninstitute.org/2026/05/bridging-science-between-mexico-and-the-united-states-an-interview-with-ragon-postdocs-and-inaugural-femsa-fellows-jonathan-padilla-gomez-and-jennie-ruelas-castillo/

05/14/2026

The 2026 Ragon PRISM Science Club has officially come to a close. Over 8 Saturdays in March and April, high school students from underrepresented communities across the Greater Boston area joined us for hands-on science, mentorship, and discussion led by graduate students and researchers from the Ragon Institute, MIT's Institute for Medical Engineering and Science (IMES), and the Harvard-MIT Program in Health Sciences and Technology (HST).

PRISM launched in 2022 as a joint effort between these three institutions, and each year it's a highlight of our outreach calendar. Thank you to our 2026 cohort and to every researcher, grad student, and collaborator who showed up to make it happen.

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

05/12/2026

The Ragon Institute is pleased to announce Carlos Casquero as the latest recipient of the Ramón Areces Foundation Research Fellowship.

Casquero, who trained in biochemistry at the University of Navarra in Spain, is a postdoctoral researcher in the Walker Lab, where his work contributes to ongoing studies of HIV and the immune responses that shape viral persistence during antiretroviral therapy.

The fellowship, supported by a partnership between the Ragon Institute and the Madrid-based Ramón Areces Foundation, provides two years of support for researchers with ties to Spain in pursuing immunology research at the Ragon. Casquero joins current fellows Gema González Rubio, PhD, and Alberto Lopez-Munoz, PhD.

Read more about the fellowship here: https://ragoninstitute.org/ramon-areces-foundation-research-fellowship/

05/05/2026

Meet Rosie Garvey, Ragon Senior HR Coordinator!

Rosie just hit her four-year Ragon anniversary, and we're so glad she's here. When she's not running along the Charles or crushing local bar trivia outside of work, she's behind the scenes making sure the world's brightest scientists have everything they need to focus on the things that matter most—including a smooth path through the visa process. As Rosie puts it, there's nothing better than knowing she's helping keep the best researchers in the world here and feeling secure.

Thanks for everything you do, Rosie!

04/30/2026

New research from the Shalek Lab at the Ragon Institute as well as the Broad Institute, published in Science, reveals how a protein called LAT keeps T cell responses in balance.

LAT sits at the center of T cell activation, relaying signals from the T cell receptor into several pathways at once. Using a new screening approach that tested 132 versions of the protein, the team found that disrupting any single part of LAT weakens all of its downstream signals together, rather than affecting them one at a time. This balance may help T cells avoid the faulty responses linked to immune dysfunction.

The work also offers a general framework for studying disordered proteins, a large and understudied group that organizes complex activities throughout the cell.

Read more: https://ragoninstitute.org/2026/04/shalek-lab-study-reveals-how-a-key-t-cell-protein-keeps-immune-responses-in-balance/

04/28/2026

In a new Q&A, we spoke to our newest faculty member Dr. Caroline Sokol, MD, PhD, about what drew her to allergy and immunology, the unexpected moment that pivoted her research toward neuroscience, and what she hopes to accomplish in her new role

A physician-scientist specializing in allergy and immunology, Sokol studies how the immune system recognizes and responds to allergens, with a particular focus on the neuroimmune circuits that underlie allergic disease. She received her BA and MS from the University of Pennsylvania, completed her MD/PhD at Yale University under Ruslan Medzhitov, PhD, and did her clinical training in Internal Medicine and Allergy & Immunology at Mass General. She previously led her lab at Mass General in the Charlestown Navy Yard before bringing her research program to the Ragon.

Read the full Q&A at the link here: https://ragoninstitute.org/2026/04/an-interview-with-caroline-sokol-the-neuroimmune-allergy-researcher-joining-the-ragon-faculty/

Address

600 Main Street
Cambridge, MA
02139

Telephone

+18572687000

Website

http://www.ragoninstitute.org/

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Ragon Institute posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Contact The Practice

Send a message to Ragon Institute:

Shortcuts

Want your practice to be the top-listed Clinic in Cambridge?