Featuring
Jon Brestoff Parker ‘08, MD/PhD Candidate
University of
Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine
Jon
hails from southern California and has had long-standing interests in
nutrition, athletic performance, and human health. In fact, it was largely
because of these interests that he enrolled at Skidmore College in 2004. That
year Jon founded the Skidmore Nutrition Action Council (SNAC) and lobbied with
other students for improvements in the food served on campus. This work brought
Jon into close contact with the Student Government Association (SGA), and he
later served as the SGA Vice President for Academic Affairs (2006-2007) and the
SGA President (2007-2008). In addition to his work with the SGA, Jon
participated in several research projects as an undergraduate and was the
recipient of the Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship in 2006. His senior thesis with
Dr. T.H. Reynolds led to the discovery of a novel anti-obesity compound that has
led to three patents and ultimately the formation of Symmetry Therapeutics, a
biotech startup dedicated to developing a new class of anti-obesity
pharmaceuticals.
In
2008, Jon graduated summa cum laude with a double major in
chemistry (biochemistry concentration) and exercise science and was the
recipient of the Margaret Paulding Award in Exercise Science “for outstanding
student research,” the Jo C. Hebard ’69 Memorial Prize for “demonstrating
particular promise of making a significant contribution to the field of health
and human services,” and the Katherine Scranton Rozendaal Outstanding
Citizenship Award. He was also a member of the Honors Forum and Periclean
Society. Shortly after graduating from Skidmore, Jon was awarded a George J
Mitchell Scholarship, on which he earned his Masters in Publish Health
(epidemiology and biostatistics concentration) from University College Cork of
the National University of Ireland. He recently co-authored a textbook, Epidemiology:
Principles and Practical Guidelines, which was published in 2013 by
Springer Science+Business Media.
Currently, Jon is in his 6th year of the
M.D./Ph.D. Combined Degree Program at the University of
Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine. He completed his Ph.D. with Dr.
David Artis and discovered a previously unknown role for the immune system in
regulating the development of obesity, work that was published this year in
Nature. He aims to use his training in medicine, epidemiology, and
cell/molecular biology to study unmet clinical problems and to translate his
discoveries into new therapeutic strategies that alleviate metabolic
disease. Jon is a member of the Skidmore College Board of Trustees.