Jon Brestoff, MD, PhD, MPH is an Associate Professor of Pathology and Immunology and Director of the Initative for Immunometabolism at WashU Medicine in St Louis. His laboratory studies how metabolic pathways regulate the function of the immune system and, in turn, how the immune system contributes to the development of metabolic diseases. His lab’s primary interest is to understand how and why intercellular mitochondria transfer occurs and to leverage this biology to develop novel mitochondria transplantation-based therapies (Cell Metabolism 2021, 2022a, 2022b; Nature 2023; Nature Metabolism 2024, 2025). The Brestoff Lab has developed multiple technologies with real-world applications, including mitochondria transplantation for inherited mitochondrial diseases (Nature Metabolism, 2024) which is progressing into clinical trials, an immunology-focused diagnostic test that is currently in clinical use, a metabolic cage analytic tool called Clambake that was successfully licensed to a major industrial partner, and a novel anti-obesity drug that is currently in development. Dr. Brestoff completed his MD and PhD at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and his MPH at University College Cork, Ireland before his residency in clinical pathology at WashU. He is the recipient of the NIH Director’s Early Independence Award, Burroughs Wellcome Fund Career Award for Medical Scientists, and Young Physician-Scientist Award from ASCI, among others. He is on the Scientific Advisory Board for the journal Cell Press Blue and the mitochondria transplantation company, LUCA Science, Inc, and he is a consultant for Columbus Instruments. He volunteers as the President-Elect of the Kern Lipid Conference Board of Directors and as a trustee at Skidmore College, where he chairs the Budget, Finance & Infrastructure Committee.