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.
Mitochondria World is the first step in a process to set up a collaborative and informative mitochondria portal that is designed to service three primary communities: a) patients and clinics through listings and referrals, b) researchers, investigators, labs and institutes to manage a flow of up-to-date research, build working groups and communicate about issues in a single place, and c) to inform and build awareness in the public and among professionals about the significance of mitochondrial research for translation into treatments for diseases and conditions across the entire lifespan, including issues of personal and global health.
Together, as MitoWorld expands, we hope to influence the levels of funding and support for research, collaborations and dialogue beyond seeing mitochondria only through the lens of their individual functions, which has not led to success in developing new drugs for mitochondrial diseases.
By widening awareness and collaborations, we hope we can stimulate more investment for broad-based mitochondrial research to support the difficult path to successful therapies for primary mitochondrial diseases as well other secondary mitochondrial dysfunctions observed in the mostly terminal diseases of aging – cancer, diabetes, neurodegenerative diseases, autoimmune problems and many more.
To further our collaborative mitochondria work, we partner with investigators, institutes and labs across the globe: our mission is to expand our reach as far as possible. We support, publicize, and participate in conferences and symposia like the Cell: Multifaceted Mitochondria Symposium in Spain at the end of October. We schedule lab visits to expand our understanding and coverage of labs and institutes, promoting their work as well. Recent visits to Douglas Wallace’s Lab at Children’s Hospital Philadelphia and at Jared Rutter’s Lab at University of Utah were instructive and we plan to meet with several more investigators by the end of the year.
Critically, our work does not stop at creating awareness and sharing information. As part of an active and still-evolving cellular symbiosis, we believe much is to be learned about how mitochondria regulate health and contribute to many yet untreatable diseases and conditions. A key aspect of our mission is to support leaders in the scientific and medical communities to drive technical advances in mitochondrial biology and medicine. The Scientific Advisory Board of MitoWorld and its staff firmly believe that the time has come to define and name a mitochondrial science and informatics effort that elevates mitochondria from single investigations into categories of research that feed into a general understanding of the basic science of mitochondrial dynamics, systems and complex interactions.
We are open to engaging, presenting and collaborating on both the mitochondrial awareness and basic science fronts. We invite your involvement in our efforts to “mainstream” mitochondria with the public, patient groups, medical practice and across the various research communities to support our collective mission to stimulate more investment and involvement into a broader understanding of the trillions of mitochondria in each of us.