Science Corner: David Friedberg Explains Recent Mitotherapy Breakthroughs ⚡️

So mitochondria are the powerhouse of the cell. We each have hundreds of them in each one of our cells. Every cell in our body gets its energy, which is what it uses to function from the mitochondria. And so there's been a lot of research into the relationship between mitochondria and aging. And that dysfunctional mitochondria may actually be a key driver for many diseases including many cancers, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, ALS, features of autism, muscle tissues being weak, etc. So as the cells get older and the mitochondria stop working, we make new mitochondria. But over time, the DNA degrades and the mitochondria become less effective and there are fewer functional mitochondria

per cell. There are three papers that I wanted to just highlight that kind of follow an interesting theme. The first one was from 2023 from WashU in St. Louis. These folks identified and demonstrated that mitochondria can actually transfer from one cell to another. So, if you've got a cell that's got damaged or dysfunctional mitochondria, they've identified three mechanisms by which mitochondria can move into a cell that needs more mitochondria that are working and are more functional. And as a result, it can rejuvenate or provide energy to a dysfunctional cell, which might improve dysfunctional tissue or improve disease.

The second paper was done out of Colombia University, and this was the first mapping of the mitochondria in the human brain. And so these folks created 703 tiny cubes of brain from a person that passed away, a 54 year old donor. And then they analyzed the mitochondria in each of those cubes. And they use that to make a map of mitochondria in the brain. And what it showed was that different parts of the brain, different cells had different amounts of mitochondria and different mitochondrial function which actually starts to highlight how that difference in energy production in different cells in different parts of the brain may actually cause some of the things like

memory loss or speech impairment that the mitochondrial dysfunction in the brain might actually be the key driver of that aging symptomology. The third paper which just came out came out of a team at Shang University in China. They took stem cells and they figured out a way to treat the stem cells so that those stem cells would start to make an excess amount of mitochondria than they normally would make. So they created highly energetic mitochondria and they made a lot of them. And the idea that we can put mitochondria into our body or into tissue in our body to heal it or repair it has been something that folks have been trying to do research around for a long time. But the limiting factor

is access to enough mitochondria. So this mechanism that they developed opens up the door to this whole new therapeutic modality, a new type of therapy called midotherapy or mitochondrial therapy that based on the series of papers that we're seeing coming out recently, I believe could end up becoming a really incredible new therapy that may ultimately lead to the treatment for many diseases that we're kind of dealing with right