More than 120 diseases are directly associated with defective mitochondria

Lucknow: The three days long 7^th Annual Conference of the Society for Mitochondrial Research and Medicine (SMRM) which was being organized by the CSIR-Central Drug Research Institute (CDRI), Lucknow, from 28 – 30 November 2018 concluded with new insights and avenues for mitochondrial research and medicine. 

The event provided the common platform for clinicians and scientist to discuss the consequences of malfunctioning of mitochondria in various health issues.

While sharing their view and research, Dr Sandhya P Kaushika from Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), Mumbai explained how their group developed a microfluidic device for long term imaging to assess how mitochondria are added during development because precisely controlled mitochondrial positioning is essential for gentle touch response of the animal.

Prof Lene Rasmussen from University of Copenhagen, Denmark explained how the replication stress via Rev1-Deficiency is responsible for metabolic stress caused by compromised mitochondrial function and how it develops the ability to bypass some DNA lesion.

Prof Linda H Bergersen from University of Oslo, Norway talked about Lactate Receptor, (HCAR1), which mediates exercise induced increase in the content of vascular growth that may have direct effects on neurons and brain health.

Dr P Govindraj from NIMHANS Bangalore said about mitochondrial oxidative phosphorylation disorders affecting both Children’s and Adult with an incident of 1/5000 individuals.

Dr K Thangaraj from CCMB Hyderabad said that 90% of mitochondrial disorders are due to mutation in nuclear genes which control mitochondrial function. They have identified mutation in genes that are associated with unique phenotypes of mitochondrial disorder.

Conference was concluded with poster session and valedictory function.