Our Mighty Mitochondria: Cell Powerhouses Can Be Harnessed for Healing

Our Mighty Mitochondria: Cell Powerhouses Can Be Harnessed for Healing

Our Mighty Mitochondria: Cell Powerhouses Can Be Harnessed for Healing Cell with mitochondria – Painting by Dr. Odra Noel, CC BY-NC 4.0 (Article by Jackie Rocheleau originally published by Knowable Magazine) Infusion of the tiny, sausage-shaped structures helps to rejuvenate tissues deprived of blood. Researchers hope the technique can treat a variety of damaged organs. James McCully was in the lab extracting tiny structures called mitochondria from cells when researchers on his team rushed in. They’d been operating on a pig heart and couldn’t get it pumping normally again. McCully studies heart damage prevention at Boston Children’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School and was keenly interested in mitochondria. These power-producing organelles are particularly important for organs like the heart that have high energy needs. McCully had been wondering whether transplanting healthy mitochondria into injured hearts might help restore their function. The pig’s heart was graying rapidly, so McCu…