Mighty mitochondria: Cell powerhouses harnessed for healing
James McCully was in the lab extracting tiny structures called mitochondria from cells when researchers on his team rushed in. They’d been operating on a pig heart and couldn’t get it pumping normally again. McCully studies heart damage prevention at Boston Children’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School and was keenly interested in mitochondria. These power-producing organelles are particularly important for organs like the heart that have high energy needs. McCully had been wondering whether t