Dr. Amy K. Barczak is the Faculty Director of the Ragon Biosafety Level 3. She is an Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and attends on the inpatient ID consult service at Massachusetts General Hospital. The Barczak lab studies mycobacteria (Mtb), the pathogen that causes tuberculosis. TB is one of the leading causes of death globally, and the bacteria employs a number of different strategies to evade and avoid the immune system. The lab seeks to understand the molecular pathogenesis and immune response in TB and apply this information to efforts to develop novel treatments and preventions.

https://www.barczaklab.org/

Ragon Bio-Safety Level 3 Core website

Dr. Jacob E. Lemieux is Assistant in Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital and Instructor in Medicine at Harvard Medical School Dr. Lemieux is interested in the microbial genetics of infectious diseases, including Lyme disease, Babesiosis, and COVID-19.

https://www.lemieuxlab.org/

Dr. Jon Li is the Director of the Harvard/Brigham Virology Specialty Laboratory, the Director of the Harvard University Center for AIDS Research Clinical Core, a member of the AIDS Clinical Trials Group Executive Committee, and a member of the NIH COVID-19 Treatment Guidelines Panel. His research is focused on HIV and SARS-CoV-2 drug resistance, reservoirs, and viral remission. He is active in the AIDS Clinical Trials Group (ACTG) as a member of the ACTG HIV Reservoirs and Viral Eradication Transformative Science Group and as the Chair of several ACTG clinical trials. He is the Deputy Editor of the IDSA journal Open Forum Infectious Diseases and the Editorial Advisory Board of the Journal of Infectious Diseases. In addition, he sees patients in both the outpatient Infectious Diseases clinic and in the inpatient consult service at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital.

https://jonathanlilab.bwh.harvard.edu/

Dr. Mark Siedner is an infectious disease clinician and clinical epidemiologist in the Division of Infectious Diseases at Massachusetts General Hospital. He directs a research program based in Uganda and South Africa, that is aimed at reducing mortality and improving the quality of life for people living with HIV. For the POSITIVES study, he and his team help identify, recruit, and following study participants over time with nasal swab and blood collection.

Participant Liaison and courier extraordinaire

Viral culture experts

Julie Boucau - Senior Research Scientist

Owen Glover

Alumni: Caitlin Marino

Whole Genome Sequencing &

Sample processing wizards

Mamadou Barry

Emory Abar

Andrew Alexandrescu

Alumni: May Liew, Rockib Uddin, Josh Mathews, Arshdeep Singh, Taryn Lipiner, Bennett Shaw

Viral quantification &

Spike sequencing virtuosos

Manish Choudhary

Rinki Deo

Greg Edelstein

Brooke Leeman

Yijia Li

Alumni: Trevor Tamura, Jimmy Flynn, Autumn Kittilson, Meghan Melberg, James Regan

Participants enrollment &

Logistics maestros

Zahra Reynolds

Dessie Tien

Eliza Passell

Karry Su

Chase Mandell

Eden Pletner

Alumni: Rebecca Gilbert, Ashley Stuckwish, Grace Chamberlin, Geoffrey Chen, Surabhi Iyer, Mary Feser, Shruti Sagar