ASCI / Young Physician-Scientist Awards, 2022
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
Jonathan R. Brestoff, MD, PHD, MPH, completed his MD and PhD at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania with Dr. David Artis, where he studied how Interleukin (IL)-33 and Group 2 innate lymphoid cells (ILC2s) regulate thermogenic beige fat to limit the development of obesity. He then moved to Washington University School of Medicine for residency in Clinical Pathology, during which time he led studies on intercellular mitochondria transfer from adipocytes to macrophages in white adipose tissue while working with Dr. Steven L. Teitelbaum. For this work, Dr. Brestoff received the NIH Director’s Early Independence Award and Burroughs Wellcome Fund Career Award for Medical Scientists and started his independent research laboratory at Washington University School of Medicine in 2019. The Brestoff Lab is focused on understanding how the immune system regulates the function of metabolic organs, especially white, beige, and brown fat. A major theme in the lab is to understand how and why some cells transfer mitochondria to other cell types in vivo and to determine whether this biological process can be harnessed therapeutically. Another major theme in the lab is to study how macrophages and other innate immune cells regulate metabolic disease pathogenesis.