Tune in with Nature Podcast to learn more about cancer and scientific advancement in a diverse global university recruiting environment: a case study of cancer-derived mitochondria
Never miss an episode. If you want to subscribe to the Nature Podcast you can do this on your favorite app or on the web. An RSS feed for the Nature Podcast is available too.
The mitochondria are speckled with a fluorescentprotein and were engineered by the team. When these cells were grown alongside TILs, the immune cells started harbouring glowing mitochondria after 24 hours. The cancer-derived mitochondria had replaced immune cells almost completely by the 15 day mark.
A huge analysis of hiring practices has revealed that criteria to get a promotion to full professorship are hugely variable around the world. The authors suggest that this variability results in researchers from countries that value one type of metric being locked out of professor positions in others. They hope the database created by this study will help institutions adjust their hiring policies to create a more diverse science workforce.
A New Biology of Cellular Dynamics: Is It Possible to Suicide or Kill in Human Mitochondrial Sub-Structures?
J.R.B. is a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of LUCA Science, Inc.; receives research support from LUCA Science and Edgewise Therapeutics; is a consultant for Columbus Instruments; has consulted for DeciBio within the past 12 months (discontinued); receives royalties from Springer Nature Group; is an inventor on technology licensed to Columbus Instruments with royalty rights; is an inventor on pending patent applications related to the treatment of metabolic diseases (63/625,555), allergic diseases (US20210128689A1) and mitochondria transfer (018984/US) assigned to Washington University in St. Louis; and is a co-founder of and holds equity in Symbiogenix, Inc.
The strongest proof to date is that the sub-structures of the cell that produce energy migrate to humans and not only in cell and animal models.
My initial thought was that this looks like science fiction. But they seem to have the data for it,” says Holden Maecker, an immunologist at Stanford University in California, who was not involved in the research. “This is potentially a totally new biology that we were not looking at.”
Tainted TILs were less able to divide and more likely to commit cell ‘suicide’, the team showed in cellular models. In mice with cancer, TILs that had imbibed alien mitochondria showed signs of T cell exhaustion — the loss of cancer-killing potential.