Mitochondrial Dysfunction as a Universal Driver for Increased Health Risks: from COVID to COSMOS
Drs. Afshin Beheshti, Sonja Best, and Keshav Singh from COV-IRT and members from NIH, NASA, and DoD are organizing a mitochondrial focused meeting for December 2nd and 3rd, 2021!! This will be the first inter-agency meeting to discuss the relevance of mitochondrial biology to multiple health states and diseases. The meeting is called “Mitochondrial Dysfunction as a Universal Driver for Increased Health Risks: from COVID to COSMOS”. It is hosted by NASA, NIH (i.e. NCI, NIAID, NIBIB, NCATS), and DOD/DTRA.
The meeting is split up into four sessions over two days with the following main topics:
- Mitochondrial impact on immune function and inflammation
- Impact of viral and bacterial pathogenesis on mitochondria
- Mitochondria in space and other unique environments, and
- Preventative and therapeutics impact on bioenergetics and mitochondria impact with disease progression.
The registration link is here.
The agenda for the meeting is here:
DAY 1 – 12/2/2021
11:00am – 11:05am: Introduction by organizers
11:05am – 12:00pm: Keynote talk: “A Mitochondrial Etiology of Common Diseases: Therapeutic Implications” – Douglas Wallace, PhD – Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia
12:00pm – 2:00pm: First Session: Mitochondrial impact on immune function and inflammation
- 12:00pm – 12:30pm: “Mitochondria in Age, Obesity, and Cancer” – Marcia C. Haigis, PhD – Harvard Medical School
- 12:30pm – 1:00pm: “Nuclear sensing of mtDNA breaks primes immune surveillance” – Agnel Sfeir, PhD: Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
- 1:00pm – 1:30pm: “Mitochondrial impact on epigenetics: implications for disease and aging” – Janine Santos, PhD – NIEHS/NIH
- 1:30pm – 2:00pm: “Failures in the healing cycle and mitochondria: a common denominator in chronic illness and aging” – Robert Naviaux, MD, PhD – University of California, San Diego
2:00pm – 2:15pm: Break
2:15pm – 4:15pm: Second Session: Impact of viral and bacterial pathogenesis on mitochondria
- 2:15pm – 2:45pm: “Mitochondrial stress as an architect of host: bacterial interactions” – Mary O’Riordan, PhD – University of Michigan Medical School
- 2:45pm – 3:15pm: “Flavivirus manipulation of mitophagy as a driver of inflammation” – Sonja Best, PhD – NIAID/NIH
- 3:15pm – 3:45pm: “SARS-CoV2 hijacking of mitochondria in COVID-19 pathogenesis” – Keshav Singh, PhD – University of Alabama at Birmingham
- 3:45pm – 4:15pm: “How microRNAs drive mitochondrial suppression with COVID-19” – Afshin Beheshti, PhD – KBR at NASA Ames Research Center, Broad Institute, COV-IRT
4:15pm – 4:30pm: Break
4:30pm -5:00pm: Discussion Session Day 1: Current priorities and knowledge gaps in mitochondrial research
Panelists:
- Danica Chen, Ph.D – Berkeley
- Richard Youle, PhD – NINDS/NIH
- Gerald Shadel, PhD – Salk Institute
- Jerry Chipuk, PhD – Icahn School of Medicine at Mt Sinai
- Philip Yeske, PhD – United Mitochondrial Disease Foundation
5:00pm – 5:05pm: Closing remarks by organizers
DAY 2 – 12/3/2021
11:00am – 11:05am: Introduction by organizers
11:05am – 12:00pm: Keynote talk: “Label-free, non-destructive imaging of mitochondrial function: from organelles to humans” – Irene Georgakoudi, PhD – Tufts University
12:00pm – 2:00pm: Third Session: Mitochondria in space and other unique environments
- 12:00pm – 12:30pm: “Mitochondrial function in extreme environments: Lessons from studies on embryos of annual killifish” – Jason E Podrabsky, PhD – Portland State University
- 12:30pm – 1:00pm: “Meta-analysis of the first 15 Arabidopsis spaceflight response transcriptome reveals changes to gene expression patterns related to mitochondrial and chloroplast carbon metabolism” – Richard Barker, PhD – The University of Wisconsin-Madison
- 1:00pm – 1:30pm: “Rewiring of Mitochondria in Space” – Nukhet Aykin-Burns, PhD – University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences
- 1:30pm – 2:00pm: “Mitochondrial regulation with astronauts” – Christopher Mason, PhD – Weill Cornell Medicine
2:00pm – 2:15pm: Break
2:15pm – 4:15pm: Fourth Session: Preventative and therapeutics impact on bioenergetics and mitochondria impact with disease progression
- 2:15pm – 2:45pm: “Nutritional and nutraceutical approaches to increase mitochondrial function across healthspan” – Andy Philp, PhD – Garvan Institute
- 2:45pm – 3:15pm: “Improvements in Bioenergetics with Technology” – John Rogers, PhD – Northwestern
- 3:15pm – 3:45pm: “Mitochondria as a target of Metformin” – Navdeep Chandel, PhD – Northwestern Medicine Feinberg School of Medicine
- 3:45pm – 4:15pm: “Advanced Computational Modeling of Mitochondrial Metabolic Responses during Infection and Ionizing Radiation”- Josep Bassaganya-Riera, PhD – Bioetherapeutics Inc
4:15pm – 4:30pm: Break
4:30pm – 5:00pm: Discussion Session Day 2: Current mitochondrial therapeutics and countermeasures to be further explored
Panelists:
- Marjan Boerma, PhD – University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences
- Scott Smith, PhD – NASA
- Sara Cogliati, PhD – Centro de Biología Molecular Severo Ochoa
- Virginia Pascual, MD – Weill Cornell Medicine
- Carmen Bergom, MD, PhD – Washington University School of Medicine
5:00pm – 5:05pm: Closing remarks by organizers
This meeting is jointly organized between:
- The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)
- The National Institute for Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH)
- The National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) at NIH
- The National Cancer Institute (NCI) at NIH
- The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) at NIH
- The Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) within the Department of Defense (DoD)
Meeting organizers (in alphabetical order):
- Afshin Beheshti (KBR/NASA/COV-IRT)
- Sonja Best (NIAID/NIH)
- Lisa Carnell (NASA)
- S Robin Elgart (NASA)
- Dan Gallahan (NCI/NIH)
- Lucie Low (NCATS/NIH)
- Heather Meeks (DOD/Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA))
- Keshav Singh (The University of Alabama at Birmingham)
- Dan Xi (NCI/NIH)
- Steve Zullo (NIBIB/NIH)
Recording, archiving and additional logistical support provided by:
- NIA
- NCATS
- NIBIB
- KBR