Associate Professor James McMahon
Associate Professor James McMahon is Head of the Infectious Diseases Clinical Research Unit at the Alfred Hospital and an Infectious Diseases physician at the Alfred Hospital and Monash Medical Centre in Melbourne. He completed his PhD from Monash University on HIV treatment outcomes and an Infectious Diseases fellowship and Masters of Public Health at Tufts in Boston. His main clinical interest is the care of people with HIV.
His main research interests are in HIV cure, HIV treatment and the cascade of HIV care and collaborates with HIV researchers in Australia, the US, Europe, and Asia. A/Prof McMahon has expertise in translational research and development of early phase clinical studies in infectious diseases particularly in the field of HIV. Examples include early phase clinical trials in HIV cure studying PET-based imaging trials to quantify persistent HIV and use of additional antiretrovirals to decrease viral replication. He is leading 2 current clinical trials at the Alfred testing different immune adjuvants (immune checkpoint blockade, Toll like receptor agonists, anti-HIV broadly neutralising antibodies) combined with an interruption of antiretroviral therapy to try and control HIV replication.
A/Prof McMahon has become active in research around COVID-19 and leads a randomised clinical trial of mRNA or protein subunit COVID vaccines in immunocompromised hosts enrolling people with HIV, solid organ transplant recipients and those with haematological malignancy. He also leads a biobank to characterise immunological and virological outcomes in COVID-19 patients and people receiving COVID vaccines and collaborates with 10 different Australian research laboratories on this work. He leads the multi-site VIRCO clinical trial that has compared Favipiravir to placebo in early symptomatic COVID-19 infected individuals for virological and clinical outcomes.
He sits on the Treatment Panel for the Australian National COVID-19 Clinical Evidence Taskforce and has chaired the Australian Society for HIV Medicine and Sexual Health (ASHM) treatment guidelines committee since 2016. He is also the Vice President and board member of ASHM and has been appointed to chair the Clinical Track for the 2023 International AIDS Society conference in Brisbane.
He has a long history of engaging with HIV community (NAPWHA, AFAO, Living Positive Victoria, Thorne Harbour Health) in his roles on the Steering Committee for the Melbourne HIV Cure consortium, the ASHM conferences and the treatment guidelines committee, community representation in his research projects and now the Monkeypox epidemic as a member of the National Monkeypox taskforce led by ASHM and AFAO.