Presenter: Lucas Restrepo (University of Pennsylvania)

When: Tuesday 24 February, 14:00-15:00

Where: Online webinar via zoom that is streamed in the Radium Hospital LU1 auditorium, followed by cake and coffee/tea.

We are excited to announce our next Rising Star seminar featuring Lucas Restrepo, who will present his recent first author publication The conserved outer mitochondrial membrane protein Mtch regulates mitophagy during Drosophila intestinal development (PLOS Biology, 2026).

Lucas completed his PhD in Biomedical Sciences in July 2025 in the lab of Dr. Eric Baehrecke at the University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School, where he studied mitochondrial-selective autophagy during Drosophila intestinal development. As a result, he discovered a novel gene on the mitochondrial surface regulating mitochondrial clearance (Restrepo et al. PLOS Biology, 2026). He also contributed to a story identifying Keap1 as a regulator of ER-phagy (Wang et al. Cell, 2023), and wrote a review on the regulations and functions of autophagy during animal development (Restrepo et al. Journal of Molecular Biology, 2024). He was also awarded the Michael R. Green Award for Outstanding Biomedical Research, a multi-department wide award given annually to one student at UMass Chan.

Lucas is now a postdoctoral fellow in the lab of Dr. Phil Campbell at the University of Pennsylvania, studying the effects of mitochondrial dysfunction in astrocytes, and how mitophagy may be playing a role in neuropsychiatric diseases, specifically in genes located in the 22q11 microdeletion syndrome locus which is highly associated with neurodevelopmental disorders such as schizophrenia and autism spectrum disorder.