Grant: Operating Grant

There are hundreds of mitochondria inside each cell who work as combustion engines. They use the oxygen that we breath to burn fat and sugar, and the energy derived from this is used as fuel for our bodies. We have long assumed that these cellular furnaces sit idly within the cell, without much attention to the general state of the cell. Recent data has changed this view, since we have realized that they are extremely dynamic structures, fusing together, branching and splitting into pieces. This proposal describes our approach to try and understand why the mitochondria behave as an interconnected group, and what this means to the cell, the tissue, and the body. Indeed, mutations in mitochondrial fusion proteins leads to serious degenerative diseases. We hope that by characterizing the details of mitochondrial shape-shifting, that we will identify new therapeutic approaches to treating degenerative disease.