Institute Member Siniša Hrvatin receives National Institutes of Health New Innovator Award

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has announced that Whitehead Institute Member Siniša Hrvatin is a recipient of an NIH Director’s New Innovator Award, which supports potentially transformative biomedical research projects. The NIH views the science advanced by New Innovator Award recipients as holding the promise to blaze new paths of discovery and transform what is known about human health.

Hrvatin investigates how organisms enter hibernation and the hibernation-like state called “torpor,” and how their cells adapt and survive in these states. Torpor is a state of profoundly decreased metabolic rate and body temperature lasting from hours to days. Mice unable to find food enter a series of bouts of torpor, each lasting up to several hours, which allow them to conserve energy for prolonged periods.

In previous research, Hrvatin established an experimental paradigm for studying torpor and behavior in mice. Subsequently, he discovered specific neurons that control entry into a state of torpor. The NIH Award will provide five years of funding for research projects building on that discovery.

In the first project, Hrvatin and colleagues at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Harvard Medical School will study the fundamental biology underlying torpor in mice, and explore the broad effects of maintaining hypothermic (i.e., low temperature) and hypometabolic (i.e., slow metabolism) function in the animals. In a second project, Hrvatin’s team will track the effects of long-term hypothermic and hypometabolic states on cancer growth. Finally, they will explore the existence of similar torpor mechanisms and effects in other mammals.

“Our working hypothesis is that, ultimately, we will be able to lay the groundwork for an array of medical applications that derive from a detailed understanding of the mechanisms underlying hibernation and torpor,” explains Hrvatin, who is also assistant professor of Biology at MIT. “These applications could range from slowing growth of malignancies to reducing the impact of aging.”