We were honored to hold an interactive session on the work of www.mitoworld.org at the CELL: Multifaceted Mitochondria Symposium in Sitges, Spain, October 27-29.

Three members of the MitoWorld scientific advisory board (Gerry Shadel, Salk Institute for Biological Studies, Mike Murphy, University of Cambridge Mitochondrial Biology Unit, and Heidi McBride, McGill University and I spoke about MitoWorld’s efforts to “mainstream” mitochondria for the public and to the medical sector, pushing also toward a more encompassing mitochondrial science, and beginning a mitochondrial informatics effort.

As a new organization, we were able to hear from the attendees on what they felt was necessary to help the mitochondrial field get more attention and to communicate how essential mitochondria are to health, disease mitigation and solving complex issues from childhood mitochondrial mutation diseases to the issues of aging and age-related diseases, many of which are without therapies.

Symposium attendance was over four hundred mitochondrial researchers from around the world with strong representation from the U.S., UK, Australia, China, Korea, Finland, Germany, Spain and Italy among others. It was also a powerful venue for the interaction between senior researchers and postdocs coming into their positions into the field which is now growing.

Attendees shared with our panel that the public and professional dialog needs to be widened globally. There was an interest in participation with MitoWorld from many of the labs.

The panel invited comments on MitoWorld’s interest in building task forces in various arenas of mitochondrial research mapped to medical practice areas and well-known research subjects. While the task forces idea was well received, the most interest was in finding ways to educate or inform doctors and the medical profession about mitochondria in specific practice areas.

In this case, mitochondria are like the hidden hand in physiology that is not often considered in diagnoses or treatment.

Additionally, there was a sense that the subject of mitochondrial research and eventual practice has to be seen as “across the lifespan,” that mitochondria are ubiquitous and consequential at every stage while, at present, the practice areas are the mutation diseases of early life and the complications of mitochondrial decline in the diseases of aging.

The subject of education, starting in school and college and in medical training, came up several times as a way to anchor mitochondria in culture and eventually in practice. It should be noted that MitoWorld is a project of the R & D nonprofit National Laboratory for Education Transformation, www.NLET.org in California.

We hope the momentum from the Symposium will help build MitoWorld globally.