Dr. Iain MacPherson, an Assistant Professor and HIV researcher at the University of Hawaiʻi John A. Burns School of Medicine (JABSOM) has received a New Investigator Award from the University of Washington/Fred Hutch Center for AIDS Research (CFAR).
“This is a highly competitive award and quite prestigious,” said Dr. Bruce Shiramizu, JABSOM Professor of Tropical Medicine, Medical Microbiology & Pharmacology and Pediatrics. Shiramizu notes that previous recipients include Lishomwa Ndhlovu, MD, PhD, Associate Professor of Tropical Medicine and Director of the JABSOM Laboratory of Molecular Immunology and Infectious Diseases.
The New Investigator Award program provides support ($45-$55,000/year for 1-2 years) to promising early career HIV/AIDS investigators. That financial support helps the junior investigators conduct independent research, acquire preliminary data to use for external grant submissions, receive career mentorship, and write additional grants to obtain funding to continue their HIV research careers.
Dr. MacPherson also recently received grant awards from the Hawaiʻi Community Foundation as a Principal Investigator and from the JABSOM Multidisciplinary And Translational Research Infrastructure Expansion, or RMATRIX program as a Co-Investigator.
UH Med Now asked Dr. MacPherson to share a little about himself and his role at JABSOM.
What Department are you with?
Tropical Medicine, Medical Microbiology and Pharmacology.
What do you do?
MacPherson: I am a researcher affiliated with the Hawaiʻi Center for AIDS, currently involved in projects focusing on methods development and biomarker discovery. My expertise is in aptamers which are small DNA or RNA molecules with a binding function similar to that of antibodies.
What do you like most about the UH medical school?
The people. I haven’t met a person here who wasn’t helpful and friendly.
How long have you been with the University? What other kinds of work have you done?
I joined the University in February of 2017. I’ve also been a post-doctoral researcher at Brandeis University (Waltham, Massachusetts) and Ludwig Maximilian University (Munich, Germany).
What’s your favorite hobby (or two or three!)
Playing soccer, surfing and fishing.
Your favorite spot in Hawai’i is (and why):
Haʻena, Kauaʻi where I visited regularly growing up and now take my family (wife Sansan, our 4-year-old son Mason and our 2-year-old daughter Skye).
Your favorite place outside of Hawai’i is (and why):
My favorite place outside of Hawaiʻi is Canada where I received my undergraduate and doctoral educations and where I became a loyal fan of the Vancouver Canucks hockey team. I’m also a Canadian citizen through my father.