ARTICLE SUMMARY:
An Israel-based start-up is taking on a cellular-level challenge that is somehow both elusive and ubiquitous at the same time.
Throughout her academic career and into her postdoctoral fellowship at the Weizmann Institute of Science, Natalie Yivgi-Ohana maintained a focus on mitochondrial science. The only organelle with its own genome (mtDNA, a circular chain of 37 genes inherited only from the maternal side), mitochondria perform critical functions within every living animal cell, converting raw nutrients to energy, producing steroid hormones, and directing reproduction and apoptosis. “The fact that mitochondria actually control life and death decisions was a trigger for me to understand their significance,” Yivgi-Ohana says. The discovery that many diseases associated with mitochondrial dysfunction have no approved therapies, and that mitochondrial disease is an inevitable consequence of aging, drove her to innovate a treatment that could replace the damaged organelles with younger, healthier versions, an idea that spawned Yivgi-Ohana’s company, Minovia Therapeutics.
