Affiliation: UMass Chan Medical School, Department of Molecular, Cell & Cancer Biology

Dr. Panagiotis Velentzas is an Instructor in the Department of Molecular, Cell and Cancer Biology at UMASS Chan Medical School. He received his PhD from the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens where he studied the role of the proteasome in different types of programmed cell death. He then did his postdoctoral training at UMASS Chan Medical School with Dr. Baehrecke, where he studied autophagy, a type of programmed cell death. There he identified a novel monocarboxylate transporter that influences autophagic cell death in Drosophila in an mTOR-dependent manner. His current research focuses on understanding the relationship between metabolism and autophagy in model organisms. Specifically, he is aiming to elucidate the role of solute carriers (SLCs), a superfamily of proteins that transport nutrients across membranes, in the regulation of autophagy, with the use of Drosophila genetic models.