Eric Baehrecke renews NIH MIRA to continue study of autophagic cell death
Date Posted: Monday, April 01, 2024
Eric Baehrecke, PhD, has renewed his NIH Maximizing Investigators’ Research Award (MIRA) from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS) to investigate the regulation of autophagy during animal development. Using the Drosophila intestine as a model system, the study focuses on understanding how certain organelles—specifically, the mitochondria and the endoplasmic reticulum—are distinguished and selected for autophagy during development. The research aims to better understand the diversity of mechanisms that control autophagy, which has implications in understanding how defects in autophagy may lead to human disorders, including neurodegeneration, cancer and inflammatory diseases.