Understanding how the cell’s energy metabolism affects aging and disease

Dr. Brand is an authority on the cell’s energy-producing units, the mitochondria, and their influence on aging and disease.  He received his PhD in Biochemistry at the University of Bristol in the UK. He was a Postdoctoral Fellow at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, MD and then a faculty member for more than 20 years at the University of Cambridge.  He began collaborative studies with Buck faculty members while at Cambridge as a Group Leader at the Dunn Human Nutrition Unit of the Medical Research Council.  He joined the Buck Institute in 2008.

Dr. Brand looks for clues to the origins of aging and disease by studying the “energy factories’’ of the cell.  These cell units called mitochondria extract energy from nutrients and distribute it to drive the machinery of life. But activity within the mitochondria is also believed to be one of the primary drivers of aging.  As the mitochondria produce energy, they release “free radicals.’’  These reactive molecules can damage cells and are implicated in many degenerative diseases, including cancer, heart disease, stroke and many neurological disorders. Dr. Brand is collaborating with other Buck faculty members to evaluate the role of the mitochondria in diseases of aging such as Parkinson’s disease.   His lab envisions future treatments that would minimize the release of free radicals without inhibiting the production of energy in the mitochondria.

Along these lines, Dr. Brand is looking at the possible role of mitochondria in diabetes. Mitochondria become inefficient when activities involving energy production are uncoupled from energy conservation. His lab studies certain “uncoupling” proteins and their involvement in heat production, insulin secretion, immune function and radical production. This research has opened up new potential drug targets for the treatment of diabetes and obesity, which is a major risk factor for the disease.

mbrand@buckinstitute.org
Phone: 415-493-3676
Assistant: Libbie Butler
lbutler@buckinstitute.org
Phone: 415-493-3675
Fax: 415-209-2232

“We aim to cut through the guesswork and establish how free radicals that impact aging and disease are generated, and how they can be decreased.’’

- Martin Brand, PhD