Slightly Insider Info: Mitochondrial Protofection Works

Fight Aging!

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From Rafal Smigrodzki - via the Extropy chat list - excellent news on progress made by the research group he works with:

Today our team confirmed our previous preliminary data showing that we can achieve robust mitochondrial transfection and protein expression in mitochondria of live rats, after an injection of genetically engineered mitochondrial DNA complexed with our protofection transfection agent. A significant fraction of cells in the brain is transfected with this single injection even though we so far did not optimize the dose.
This achievement has important implications for medicine: protofection technology works in vivo, and should be capable of replacing damaged mitochondrial genomes.

For those new to mitochondrial research and its relationship with aging and rejuvenation science, you can find more on Rafal's work here at Fight Aging! and details on the importance of repairing mitochondrial DNA damage at Aubrey de Grey's Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence (SENS) website. In short, this merits celebration! We're going be hearing much more about the repair of damaged mitochondria in the years ahead, firstly to cure specific age-related disease, and then to tackle general age-related damage to the mitochondrial genome.