Rate My Professor Tony Merriman

Professor Tony Merriman is an Honorary Research Professor in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at the University of Otago. He holds a BSc(Hons) and PhD from the University of Otago and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand (FRSNZ). He completed his undergraduate degree in Biochemistry at Otago in 1989 and his PhD in Biochemistry in 1993, studying the role of the PvdD gene in iron chelation by Pseudomonas aeruginosa under the supervision of Professor Iain Lamont. Following his PhD, he undertook postdoctoral research at the University of Oxford from 1994 to 1998, focusing on the genetics of type 1 diabetes under Professor John Todd. He returned to the University of Otago in 1998, initially shifting his research to the genetics of rheumatoid arthritis before turning in the early 2000s to the genetics of gout, driven by research needs in Aotearoa New Zealand, with particular attention to Māori and Pacific populations.

In 2020, Professor Merriman transferred his gout research program to the University of Alabama at Birmingham while maintaining ongoing collaborations and oversight of sample repositories in New Zealand. His work employs genetic epidemiology to investigate the molecular pathways underlying gout and related conditions. He received a James Cook Research Fellowship in 2018 from the Royal Society Te Apārangi to advance this research. Professor Merriman has contributed extensively to the understanding of the genetic basis of gout through numerous publications and has been recognized with awards including the 2025 G-CAN Gold Medal.