Metabolism

Whitehead Institute Member Jing-Ke Weng studies plant metabolism, the set of processes plants use to produce thousands of unique molecules, many of which have potent medicinal properties. The Weng lab is hunting for more of these molecules in the wild, and developing strategies to sustainably produce plant molecules already of interest at scale.

New research reveals that a molecule called fumarate can step in for oxygen during the process of cellular respiration, allowing mitochondria to maintain some functions in low-oxygen conditions.

Whitehead Institute Member David Sabatini has been awarded the 2020 Mechthild Esser Nemmers Prize in Medical Science at Northwestern University. 

Evgeni “Genya” Frenkel is a postdoc in Whitehead Institute Member David Sabatini’s lab investigating mitochondria. We sat down with Frenkel to learn more about him and his experiences in and out of the lab.

Walter Chen, former Whitehead Institute graduate student with Member David Sabatini, now in training to become a physician-scientist, has been announced as a 2020 STAT Wunderkind.

Whitehead Institute researchers may have identified the long-sought after transport molecule for NAD, a molecule used to produce the energy that powers our cells.

Researchers in the lab of Whitehead Institute Member David Sabatini, identify a key molecule that signals to the cell’s growth-triggering complex mTORC1 when there is sugar to be had, leading to a metabolic response.