Lucas D. BonDurant has completed his graduate work in the laboratory of Dr. Matthew Potthoff and will graduate with his PhD in May 2018.   His thesis title was "The Regulation of Glucose Homeostasis by FGF21."   BonDurant's dissertation work focused on the mechanism of FGF21 in regulating glucose homeostasis through enhancing insulin sensitivity, increasing energy expenditure, and decrease simple sugar intake in an effort to define FGF21's pharmacological and physiological effects.  Members of his thesis committee were chair, Dr. Matthew Potthoff, Drs. Justin Grobe and Kamal Rahmouni from the Department of Pharmacology, Dr. Ling Yang from the Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology, and Dr. Eric Taylor from the Department of Biochemistry.

Lucas received his BS in Cell and Molecular Biology from Missouri State University and entered the Molecular and Cell Biology Program (now Molecular Medicine Program) at the University of Iowa in 2014.  Throughout his graduate training, Lucas was selected to present his research at multiple venues including a Keystone Conference in Colorado and an EMBO Workshop in Portugal.  He will be starting a Research Scientist position at Alnylam Pharmaceuticals in April 2018.