i♥mitochondria.com

what I've been reading

Research news

I read a lot of mitochondria and VDAC1 papers so you don't have to. The ones worth knowing about — summarised in my own words, always linked to the source. Below the highlights, filter the whole archive by topic, category, year or tag.

VDAC1 channel
paper of the week
22 Jul 2026Cell Signalling

In septic T cells, VDAC1 oligomers open a pore that leaks mtDNA and drives inflammation — and VBIT-12 shuts it down

A Shanghai team watched VDAC1 clump up, leak mtDNA, and trip the cGAS–STING alarm in immune cells — and calmed the whole thing down with the oligomerization blocker VBIT-12.

the full story →

→ Ren et al., Cell Signalling 2026 · doi.org/10.1016/j.cellsig.2026.112642

three more I dog-eared

Mitochondria news, rapid-fire

  1. A mitochondria-targeting nanozyme restarts mitophagy in cartilage and switches off mtDNA-driven inflammation in osteoarthritis. Bioengineers at Shanghai Ninth People's Hospital built a mitochondria-targeting nanozyme that mops up damage in cartilage cells, restarts mitophagy, and shuts down the mtDNA→cGAS/STING inflammation loop in osteoarthritis. Bioactive Materials →
  2. Mendelian randomization flags specific mitochondrial genes as likely causal in acute and chronic kidney disease. A Sichuan group cross-referenced the whole MitoCarta gene inventory against genetics of acute and chronic kidney disease and pulled out a handful of mitochondrial genes that look causal. Renal Failure →
  3. Danshen (Salvia miltiorrhiza) eases lung fibrosis in rats by restoring PINK1/Parkin mitophagy in fibroblasts. A Shanghai team showed danshen (Salvia miltiorrhiza) eases lung fibrosis in rats by nudging fibroblasts to run mitophagy through the PINK1/Parkin pathway. Journal of Ethnopharmacology →
company note · disclosure inside
24 Jun 2026x-tosis.com

x-tosis lands a $2.74M Michael J. Fox Foundation grant to push XTS001 — a brain-penetrant VDAC1-oligomerization blocker — toward Parkinson's

The most conflicted post on the site, flagged as such: x-tosis — the biotech I co-founded — just won a $2.74M grant from The Michael J. Fox Foundation to advance XTS001, an oral, brain-penetrant molecule that blocks VDAC1 oligomerization, into Parkinson's development.

read the write-up →

→ x-tosis press release, x-tosis.com 2026 · link

if you only read one review

A Yantai University review maps calcium overload as a cancer-killing strategy — how the ER and mitochondria trade calcium across their contact sites, with VDAC1 sitting in the middle of the relay. more →

→ Ding et al., Pharmaceutical Science Advances 2026 · doi.org/10.1016/j.pscia.2026.100129

·The full archive

Every post and news piece — split by domain (VDAC1 vs mitochondria), category, year and tag.