MitoWorld

In “Beyond the Disease” MitoWorld partners with the United Mitochondrial Disease Foundation to highlight advances in mitochondrial science and the people responsible for them. www.MitoWorld.org is devoted to better public and medical understanding of underlying mitochondrial science in an effort to raise awareness of the field in order to attract greater funding for the pursuit of mitochondrial disease and dysfunction.

In Chris Mason and Afshin Beheshti: Is Life in Space Possible? (MitoCast “Spotlight” Interview), Life sciences reporter Daniel Levine questions top space biomedicine researchers Chris Mason (WorldQuant Professor, Weill Cornell Medicine) and Afshin Beheshti (Director of Center for Space Biomedicine, University of Pittsburgh) about the large-scale omics analyses of astronaut (and mice and rat) data showing surprising limitations of mitochondria fitness in space.

In Is a Life in Space Possible, or is Space a Laboratory for Health and Disease on Earth?, MitoWorld’s Gordon Freedman writes that if Elon Musk intends to plan for life on Mars or NASA plans for settlement on the Moon, they will need to consider how to mitigate issues of mitochondria degrading in space. However, according to space biomedicine experts Chris Mason (WorldQuant Professor, Weill Cornell Medicine) and Afshin Beheshti (Director of Center for Space Biomedicine, University of Pittsburgh) space may be an ideal lab to study mitochondria, aging and other issues.

In The Nerve of Some Cells, MitoWorld’s Gary Howard reports on a paper published in Nature, led by Simon Grelet of University of South Alabama, that shows that cancer cells benefit from the transfer of energy-producing mitochondria obtained from neurons. These findings have significant implications for the understanding of cancer cell biology and may inform the development of future cancer therapies, either by inhibiting such transfers or by targeting the recipient cells. This work also contributes to the broader study of intercellular mitochondrial transfer in health and disease.

In Mitochondria, Curiosity, and Crazy Ideas: Inside Dr. Toño Enríquez’s GenOXPHOS Lab, Michaela Veliova, PhD, a postdoctoral researcher in the laboratory of Dr. José Antonio Enríquez, provides a profile of their Functional Genetics of the Oxidative Phosphorylation System group at the Spanish National Centre for Cardiovascular Research.

In MitoWorld had a few questions for Dr. Enríquez and his Lab, Michaela Veliova, PhD, a postdoctoral researcher in the laboratory of Dr. José Antonio Enríquez at the Spanish National Centre for Cardiovascular Research, asks Dr. Enríquez about his mitochondrial passions, the mission of his lab and the necessity of building a strong mitochondrial basic science.

Beyond The Disease, August 5, 2025