Overview

Our bodies are fuelled by the food we eat. The conversion of fuel to cellular energy is done by the many mitochondria that are found within each cell. The mitochondria are derived from ancient bacteria that now reside as small compartments in the cell. Their primary role is to take the oxygen we breathe and use it to drive a combustion reaction that breaks down sugar or fat into the single carbon CO2 that we exhale. For many years, scientists have studied the very complex biochemistry that occurs within the mitochondria. The topic has filled our libraries with textbooks for the past 50 years.

With the advent of time-lapse video imaging and exciting new tools in molecular biology, we are part of a new renaissance of research into this ancient organelle. We are asking very fundamental questions that are relevant to disease, focusing on heart disease, stroke, and neurodegenerative diseases. For example, we are trying to understand how the mitochondria decide whether to break down sugar or fat, a critical factor in the development of obesity, diabetes, and atherosclerosis.

We are interested in learning how the mitochondria communicate with the rest of the cell. We are also searching for molecular explanations that govern their specific localization within the cell, whether at the tips of a neuron or along the surface of a muscle.

In asking these questions, we have been able to make totally unexpected discoveries that put the mitochondria in a completely new light. Along with other scientists and colleagues around the world, we are working to achieve a new, fundamental understanding of how the cellular furnace is able to respond in such a precise and dynamic way to all of the challenges and signals that are continuously presented to the cell.