2025 was a strong year for www.MitoWorld.org. As an information, publishing, and community web hub devoted to mainstreaming mitochondria, mtDNA, and the mitonuclear system as core to physiology, medicine, health, and translational research, we now have positive user reactions and acceptance across the research, clinical, and patient worlds. Thank you to our visitors, readers, and followers on social media for this.

MitoWorld is a largely volunteer organization that succeeds due to the incredible support of our Scientific Advisory Board (SAB) and the efforts of Alex Sercel, PhD (MitoWorld Director of Scientific Affairs and cofounder), Gary Howard, PhD, (MitoWorld Editor-Writer), Dane Wolf, PhD (MitoWorld Microscopist, Writer), Kyrie Wilson, PhD (MitoWorld Director of Scientific Communications) and Zach Kirshner for his never-ending creativity in designing and managing the MitoWorld website.

We hope we are providing a constant drumbeat of attention for the emerging and ever more popular field of mitochondrial medicine and research, sharing key insights within the research, medical, and patient communities, and playing a unique role in advocating for deeper basic science for all things mitochondrial and mitonuclear.

As the publisher of MitoWorld and the founder of the parent nonprofit, www.NLET.org/biomed, my introduction, as a nonscientist, to mitochondria was first as a patient with a non-mutational mitochondrial dysfunction. This led me directly and personally into the vast and complex terra incognita of mitochondrial cellular biology, endosymbiosis, mtDNA, and its relationship to the nucleus. Having worked in big-science reporting and outreach in astrophysics and cosmology, I found biology more complicated, with less theory and a smaller emphasis on building basic science.

Report for 2025

MitoWorld launched in the spring of 2023 after early contact with Mike Murphy (Cambridge) and Phillip West (then Texas A&M Hospital, now the Jackson Laboratory), which led to support from Navdeep Chandel (Northwestern) and Anu Wartiovaara (University of Helsinki), resulting in the formation of our SAB with the support of Douglas Wallace (CHOP) and others.

www.MitoWorld.org (web hub, communications, and media) and www.MITOS.Global (collaboration network structure) are sub-parts of the California-based research and development human capital and STEM nonprofit National Laboratory for Education Transformation, www.NLET.org, founded in 2011 and based in Oakland, CA.

1. MitoWorld Media

At this stage, MitoWorld’s primary activity is publishing five or more MitoBlog posts every month reviewing top papers in the field, covering leading conferences, and occasionally producing long-form MitoCast podcasts.

MitoBlog Posts: 55 posts in 2025 in four categories: Mitochondrial Frontiers, From the Field, Profiles, Events. Examples: First Mito Drug Approval, Mitochondria In Space, José Antonio Enríquez Profile (CNIC, Madrid), Motherboard of the Cell (Scientific American), mtDNA FASBE Conference

MitoCast Podcasts: Conducted by Danny Levine of the www.LevineMediaGroup.com these include Douglas Wallace (CHOP), Navdeep Chandel (Northwestern), Craig Thompson (Memorial Sloan Kettering), Chris Mason (Weill Cornell) with Afshin Beheshti (U Pittsburgh) “Is Life in Space Possible.”

UMDF-MitoWorld “Beyond the Disease”: Each month MitoWorld provides the United Mitochondrial Disease Foundation, www.UMDF.org, a set of blogs and podcasts for their monthly newsletter.

What Mito Media Needs: MitoWorld, primarily a volunteer organization, is seeking volunteers or stipend-supported contributors to help expand Mito Media—curating research papers into collections, managing social media, curating articles, videos, and programs. Writers are also welcome.
Contact: info@mitoworld.org

2. MitoWorld Directories

MitoWorld provides two primary sets of registries or directories for “Patients and Clinics” and “Research and Industry.” These directories were created, based on my experience and that of many others, in trying to find resources, contacts, and pathways to understand and follow the research community, clinical options, and mitochondrial science more broadly.

We have only begun this work. In 2026, we aim to grow these directories and use AI to identify mitochondrial researchers and build comprehensive databases across clinics, patient organizations, research groups, industry, and funding entities.

What Mito Directories Needs:
MitoWorld seeks volunteer or stipend-supported coordinators to help secure funding and support to build out these registries, implement structured databases, and deliver deep search and discovery capabilities for the mitochondrial community. MitoWorld has an AI partnership that can assist with this work.
See: https://www.heurekalabs.co/

3. Introducing MITOS Global (Mitochondria, Informatics, Translation, Outreach, Science)

www.NLET.org/biomed, the nonprofit parent of MitoWorld, recognized that MitoWorld serves as an information, communication, and outreach hub, but it does not itself conduct research. MitoWorld exists to support, connect, and amplify the mitochondrial research, clinical, and patient communities.

Two key realities emerged:

  1. Funding is limited and fragmented, preventing sustained, coordinated investigation across labs and disciplines.
  2. There is insufficient time and infrastructure for collaborative, systems-level research integrating biology, computation, and data science.

MitoWorld repeatedly heard from researchers about the need for coordinated, multi-investigator efforts addressing foundational mitochondrial questions.

www.MITOS.Global was organized to meet this need, with leadership including Patrick Chinnery, MD, PhD (University of Cambridge, MRC-UKRI), Anu Suomalainen Wartiovaara, MD, PhD (University of Helsinki), Phillip West, PhD (The Jackson Laboratory), and Jared Rutter, PhD (University of Utah).

The parent nonprofit, www.NLET.org, has over 14 years of experience managing large-scale, multi-institutional collaborations supported by federal agencies and philanthropic organizations.

Currently, two collaborative, multi-PI projects are active within MITOS Global, with two more in development.

Human Mitochondrial Metabolic Drive and Ecological Consequences

Activity: Letter of Interest, Simons Collaboration in Ecology and Evolution, Simons Foundation

Principal and Co-Principal Investigators:
Florencia Camus, University College London
Iain Johnston, University of Bergen
Nick Jones, Imperial College London
Kevin McCann, University of Guelph
Dan Mishmar, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev
Joel Sharbrough, University of California, Santa Barbara
Gordon Freedman, National Laboratory for Education Transformation (Applicant/Lead)
Ken Sorey, National Laboratory for Education Transformation (Project Personnel)

Mitochondrial Intercellular Mobility: Standards, Methods, and Validity

Activity: Concept Letter Submission, ARIA Precision Mitochondria, Advanced Research and Invention Agency (UK)

Note: The ARIA category MITOS Global submission is on hold until initial research begins. However, the core MITOS team continues to advance mobility protocols.

Principal and Co-Principal Investigators:
Phillip West, PhD, The Jackson Laboratory
Rajarshi Mukherjee, FRCS, PhD, University of Liverpool
Martin Picard, PhD, Columbia University
Kostas Tokatlidis, PhD, University of Glasgow
Stephen P. Burr, PhD, University of Cambridge
Cristiane Benincá, PhD, UCLA
Matthew Hirschey, PhD, Duke University

Internal Team:
Alexander J. Sercel, PhD – Director of Scientific Affairs, www.MitoWorld.org
Colwyn Headley, PhD – Stanford University
Gavin McStay, PhD – Liverpool John Moores University
Dane M. Wolf, PhD – www.MitoWorld.org
Kyrie Wilson, PhD – Medical College of South Carolina
Yasemin Sancak, PhD – University of Washington

4. External Education Outreach

October 2025: STEM Magazine, “Welcome to Mitoverse,” by Dane Wolf, PhD, and Gordon Freedman. An in-depth introduction to mitochondria in a major STEM education publication reaching over 500,000 readers.

5. MitoWorld Conference Support

MitoWorld supports mitochondrial conferences as a media sponsor, typically exchanging coverage and promotion for participation. MitoWorld also submits posters describing its mission to expand awareness of mitochondrial science and engage future scientists.