Michael Lazarou

Michael Lazarou, PhD, contributed to landmark discoveries in the field of PINK1/Parkin-dependent mitophagy. He was awarded his PhD in 2008 from La Trobe University and in 2010 conducted his postdoctoral research studies at the National Institutes of Health, working on mitochondrial dysfunction in Parkinson’s disease. His research on PINK1/Parkin mitophagy led to him receiving the 2013 ASBMB Boomerang Award and the 2022 ASBMB Shimadzu Research Medal. Michael is currently a lab head at WEHI where he is Deputy Head (Research) of WEHI’s Parkinson’s disease research centre. He also has a co-appointment at the Biomedicine Discovery Institute at Monash University. Michael is currently a Rebecca Cooper Medical Research Foundation fellow and a National Health and Medical Research Investigator fellow. Michael uses multiple imaging modalities, including AI-directed volumetric electron microscopy, combined with gene editing and biochemistry of cells and iNeurons to understand the intricate mechanisms of mitophagy and mitochondrial quality control.