Dr. Gaurav D. Gaiha, MD, DPhil, is an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Attending Physician in the Division of Gastroenterology at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH). Dr. Gaiha’s lab focuses on understanding the T cell response to viral diseases and GI cancer, with the goal of identifying T cell targets that can be used to drive rational design of vaccines and treatments.

The Gaiha lab is working to establish a T cell vaccine platform that uses structure-based network analysis, a novel approach that integrates protein structure data and network theory, to identify regions within pathogens that are resistant to mutation. Using this approach, Dr. Gaiha identified T cell targeting in individuals who spontaneously control HIV in the absence of therapy (Gaiha et al., Science 2019). These results are now being used to drive rational design of prophylactic and therapeutic vaccines for HIV. The lab is also using this approach to study other pathogens of global significance, such as SARS-CoV-2. Additionally, in collaboration with industry partners, Dr. Gaiha is exploring a range of vaccine modalities to induce robust tissue-resident and systemic T cell immunity towards specific targets.

Dr. Gaiha is a recipient of the NIAID New Innovators DP2 Award (2020), the Gilead HIV Scholars Research Award (2020) and the Burroughs Wellcome Career Award for Medical Scientists (2019). He also received the Fellows Award for Excellence in Clinical Teaching from the MGH Department of Medicine.

Dr. Gaiha received his D.Phil in Biochemistry from Oxford University as a Clarendon Scholar and his MD magna cum laude from the Health Sciences and Technology (HST) program at Harvard Medical School and MIT. He trained in Internal Medicine and Gastroenterology at MGH before completing his post-doctoral research fellowship at the Ragon Institute.