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PHOTOGRAPH BY KATHERINE TAYLOR, THE NEW YORK TIMES/REDUX
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By Victoria Jaggard, Executive Editor
I’ve always been more enamored with chemistry, geology, and astronomy. But when I flash back to grade-school biology, I remember being fascinated by the inner workings of the cell. Colorful textbook diagrams make cells look like mini-machines packed with a cartoon assortment of gears and cogs. Now health care researchers believe they’ve found a way to treat a variety of life-threatening conditions, from heart attacks to strokes, by tinkering with the tiny cellular “batteries” called mitochondria.
As Emma Yasinski reports for Nat Geo, mitochondria are often called cellular powerhouses because they make the molecule the body uses to convert food into energy. And when mitochondria break down, as they do in damaged tissue, they can cause biological chaos. But researchers started wondering: What if you could transplant healthy mitochondria into damaged tissue? Amazingly, early trials in animals and a small set of people found that this procedure can help patients with heart defects and may even lessen brain damage after a stroke.
The experts are hopeful that these unusual transplants may one day be a game-changer. “It’s time to zero in on this phenomenon and explain it,” heart-disease researcher Jason Bazil says, “to try to save as many lives as we can.”
Read the full article here.
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