ASCI / Young Physician-Scientist Awards, 2024
The Young Physician-Scientist Awards (YPSA) recognize physician-scientists who are early in their first faculty appointment and have made notable achievements in their research.
About the awardee
Tarin Bigley, MD, PhD is a pediatric rheumatology and immunology physician-scientist at Washington University in St. Louis. He completed his MD and PhD training at the Medical College of Wisconsin where his research focused on herpes virus biology and understanding antiviral resistance, immune evasion, and congenital infection. His research was supported by a F31 award from the NIAID. His residency and fellowship training were completed at Washington University in St. Louis. During fellowship, Dr. Bigley performed T32 and K08 funded research in the lab of Dr. Wayne Yokoyama studying the impact of early-life herpes infection on development of autoimmunity and neuroinflammation. He established that neonatal infection with roseoloviruses results in loss of central tolerance and subsequent autoimmunity. He is now an Assistant Professor in the Departments of Pediatrics, Molecular Microbiology and Pathology & Immunology at Washington University in St. Louis. His research program focuses on understanding how viruses that infect the thymus induce immune dysregulation and predisposition to autoimmune disease. He also has an ongoing interest in the role of herpes viruses in neuroinflammatory disease as well as an additional focus on how viruses and the immune system interact in patients with monogenic inborn errors of immunity.