Nima Mosammaparast, MD ’06, PhD ’05

September 1, 2022 – The UVA Medical Alumni Association is pleased to announce the recipient of the 2022 Early Achievement Award in Biomedical Sciences: Nima Mosammaparast, MD ’06, PhD ’05

Mosammaparast graduated from the UVA MD/PhD program in 2006, doing his doctoral work with Lucy Pemberton, PhD. He subsequently trained as a resident in clinical pathology at Brigham & Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School. After serving as chief resident and performing postdoctoral work in the Department of Cell Biology with Yang Shi, PhD, he served as an instructor in pathology at Harvard and Boston Children’s Hospital. He was then recruited to Washington University in St. Louis in 2012 as an assistant professor, receiving tenure and promotion to associate professor in his home department of Pathology and Immunology in 2018.

Over the past ten years, Mosammaparast developed and led a highly active and successful basic and translational cancer research program, focusing primarily on the molecular understanding of cancer cell responses to commonly used chemotherapeutic agents. Most notably, his group defined a previously unrecognized pathway in which human cells respond to such damage. His findings have been published in journals such as Nature, Science, and Molecular Cell. His work is currently funded by seven grants, including three National Cancer Institute funded awards, and he recently became the youngest project leader on one of the longest running multi-institutional P01 Program Project grants funded by the NCI.

Besides conducting his own research, Mosammaparast has also served as co-leader of the DNA Metabolism and Repair (DMR) program of the Siteman Cancer Center at WashU, as well as co-director of the Pathology Physician Scientist Training Program (PSTP), the research residency program within his department. Notably, all of the recent trainees from this program have gone on to investigator-track faculty positions at major academic institutions.

Congratulations to Dr. Mosammaparast on this well-deserved recognition.