Why Drug Developers Have a Growing Interest in Targeting Mitochondria

Mitochondria are often referred to as the “powerhouses” of the cell, but as scientists gain a greater understanding of these essential organelles, they are coming to discover they play a more expansive role in health and disease. The Foundation for the National Institutes of Health named Navdeep Chandel a co-recipient of the 2023 Lurie Prize in Biomedical Sciences for his research that revealed how mitochondria function as signaling organelles that control the body’s normal functions and impact diseases, including cancer and inflammation. We spoke to Chandel, professor of medicine in the Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care and of biochemistry and molecular genetics at the Feinberg School of Medicine, about the state of our understanding of mitochondria, why drug developers are pursuing therapies to target mitochondria across a broad range of diseases, and the need for a concerted effort to conduct fundamental research to better understand the biology of this organelle.