Professor Michael Lawson has been awarded a highly prestigious Early Stage Investigator Maximizing Investigators’ Research Award (ESI MIRA) R35 grant from the National Institutes of Health / National Institute of General Medical Sciences. This award will support Lawson’s research focused on the interplay of protein synthesis and messenger RNA decay over a five-year period.
The MIRA program supports investigators’ overall research programs through a single, unified grant rather than individual project grants. The goal is to provide investigators with greater stability and flexibility, thereby enhancing scientific productivity and the chances for important breakthroughs.
Lawson obtained his bachelor’s degree in chemistry from Pomona College in 2009 and a Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, in molecular and cell biology in 2016. Following his postdoctoral training at Stanford University, Lawson joined the UCLA Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry faculty in 2023. He currently holds the Randy Schekman and Sabeeha Merchant Chair.
The Lawson Lab uses biochemical, biophysical, and structural techniques to examine mechanisms of eukaryotic translational quality control. More about the Lawson Lab’s research and latest findings can be found at their website.
Penny Jennings, UCLA Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry, penjen@g.ucla.edu.
