This past Saturday we had the opportunity to share our research with a select group of members and friends of the NW Mitochondrial Research Guild.
The event, aptly named Mito Science Night, included a tour around the different labs in the Mitochondrial Program: the Morgan/Sedensky lab, the Hahn lab and the Quintana lab.
Guests were welcomed into the Seattle Children’s Research Institute at around 5:30pm, where they could start enjoying some hors d’oeuvres and drinks to get the night started…
Once our mitos were charged, it was time to visit the labs!
Several stations were ready for this 50-minute (-ish) tour:
- Nicole Brockway, of the Morgan/Sedensly lab, showed the importance of green fluorescent Caenorhabditis elegans (a.k.a.
Eli showing the importance of red fluorescent mitochondria worm) in mitochondrial research.
- Valeria Vasta and Sihoun Hahn showed current methods to sequence nuclear and mitochondrial DNA in the search for novel mutations and diagnostics in mitochondrial disease.
- Bernhard Kaiser, of the Morgan/Sedensky lab presented the Seahorse analyzer, which enables scientists (a.k.a. us) to study respiration of really small quantities of fresh mitochondria from healthy and sick tissue and identify how mitochondrial mutations affect the physiology of mitochondria.
- Elisenda Sanz, from the Quintana lab, showed novel tools to identify mitochondria for select populations, and the future potential of these approaches.
- Christian Woods and Pavel Zimin, of the Morgan/Sedensky lab showed how we are identifying the electrophysiological alterations in neurons carrying mitochondrial mutations.
- Albert Quintana showed the use of optogenetics and viral vector delivery in our quest to uncover what causes neurons to be sensitive (or resistant) to mitochondrial disease.
After the tour, guests (and scientists) had the opportunity to enjoy a wonderful dinner while we continued discussing about science, life or any other topic that came to mind.
It just amazes me the amount of insightful and interesting questions that a night like this can generate!
All in all, an extraordinary experience that allowed us to provide a first-hand impression of our work and show our appreciation to the NW Mitochondrial Research Guild for their continuous support of our research.
Kudos to Marge Sedensky, Phil Morgan and Diana Wells for putting everything together and special thanks to Kelsey Montgomery, Irene Bolea, Alex Gella and Leslie Itsara for the invaluable help!
Please do not forget to check the gallery with the rest of the pics!