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Vojo Deretic, the director of the newly founded Autophagy, Inflammation, and Metabolism (AIM) Center of Biomedical Research Excellence in Albuquerque, New Mexico, is May’s Faculty Member of the Month. Vojo’s research is focused on autophagy, a biological process that holds the key to cellular health and longevity and could help in treating many diseases, such as cancer, neurological disorders, autoimmunity, diabetes and heart disease. He examines it as a basic mechanism, including genetic, biochemical and cell biological aspects, and its potential for applications in medicine and biotechnology.

In this Q&A, Vojo illustrates why he finds autophagy so spectacularly exciting and interesting area of biology, and the groundbreaking research taking place at a new research center.

 

Can you tell us about your research?

My laboratory’s primary contribution to the autophagy field was to recognise it as an immune process, starting with a demonstration that autophagy can capture and destroy intracellular Mycobacterium tuberculosis in macrophages. This led to an expansion of interest in the role of autophagy in control of bacteria and viruses, with a detailed picture on how the bacteria or viruses are recognized and marked for autophagy destruction by the autophagy apparatus, currently being worked out by many laboratories.

We and others have also shown the broad influence autophagy has on immunity, by affecting various other aspects of innate and adaptive immunity, from antigen presentation to T cell polarisation and immunological memory, and that autophagy is a broadly acting anti-inflammatory process.

 

March this year marked the grand opening of the autophagy research center. Can you tell us more about it?

The Autophagy, Inflammation, and Metabolism (AIM) Center of Biomedical Research Excellence is funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH).  The center is located at the University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center (UNM HSC), aspiring to promote autophagy research locally, nationally, and internationally, via the following major missions:

(a) to support through research project grants, at a considerable level close to the NIH R01-level of funding, and through customised mentoring, individual junior faculty in their endeavours to develop investigations in this area and obtain independent funding;

(b) to provide technological platforms through scientific cores that will enable and advance autophagy research with emphasis on cellular approaches for high content analyses and highly reproducible cell biological research;

(c) to foster international collaborations through the formation of an International Council of Affiliate Members and by hosting national and international symposia and workshops.

Scientifically, the AIM center is focused on autophagy and its role in inflammation and metabolism, with the emphasis on basic research and fundamental discoveries leading up to applied translational studies.

The center is funded with a US$11.5 million federal grant for five years (phase I) and if successful the center can be renewed (competitively) for two more phases, which would each run for five years.

The majority of the funds is to jump start junior investigators by giving them R01-level support for their laboratories. There is only a modest amount for remodel, so it is not about aesthetics and having an impressive architectural site, but will be judged purely on the success of the researchers’ investigations and their impact on national and international science.

There are scientific cores with equipment budget and the trick is to keep these cores current and nimble enough to grow and maintain a user base through enabling technologies. Of course, the budget is limited so we had to stick with a theme and we chose high content microscopy as the centerpiece.

 

How does the center plan to bring the scientific community together?

The center is run by an executive committee and the cores are run by expert directors and staff. There are symposia or workshops planned each year to bring the local scientific community together with a cast of international authorities in the field of autophagy and intersecting research areas.

As an aside, although New Mexico is not on either of the coasts and its population is very small, it is exceptionally well-known for top notch science and technologies with famous institutions such as the Los Alamos National Lab and Sandia National Lab in the neighborhood. UNM HSC has another NIH-funded center of biomedical research excellence on neuroscience; an NIH-funded clinical and translational sciences center, and a National Cancer Institute-funded comprehensive cancer center.

The AIM center intends to collaborate with these great local resources. However, we feel that our major strength will be in AIM’s integration in the international scientific community. That is why the AIM center has an international council of affiliate members (ICAM) who come from all continents except Antarctica (see the full list of all ICAMs at the end of this post).

We were very happy to host professor and Nobel laureate Randy Schekman, at our grand opening event on 5th March 2018. With standing room only in attendance Prof. Schekman gave an inspirational scientific presentation, followed by a lovely reception with a ribbon-cutting ceremony.

On May 21^st, we will have an annual meeting and a scientific symposium with leading figures in autophagy and inflammation including Drs. Beth Levine and Philip Schered UT Southwestern, Dallas, Dr. Vishva Dixit, Vice President of Genentech, and Dr. Randy Kaufman of Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute.

 

Tell us more about your role as AIM Center Director?

I am the AIM center director and the principal investigator on the P20 Centers of Biomedical Research Excellence (CoBFRE) grant from NIH. It is a lot of work, from scientific leadership to administrative daily stewardship. There are lots of activities. But, we have a great group of people working together and this is what makes it possible, especially given my other responsibilities as a departmental chair.

 

What is the current focus of the research projects taking place at the center?

There are currently 4 research projects taking place, one looking at the role of TRIM proteins and their role in autophagy, and autophagy restriction in HIV. Another focuses on longevity and roles of autophagy and other systems in life span in model organisms. There is also a study on fat metabolism and adipose tissue, with some overlaps with autophagy, and the project that is furthest afield is the one on T cell polarization and inflammation.

Other good news is that there are searches for new assistant professors and interviewees are coming to visit as we speak. The success rate has been pretty high and we intend to keep it.

Importantly, we see our ICAM members as a major strength of AIM and plan on bringing a subset next year, for a workshop on autophagy before or after the 2019 Keystone symposium on autophagy, to be held in Santa Fe, 17th-21st February.

I am looking forward to hosting the 2019 Keystone Symposium on autophagy, together with my co-organizers, Drs. Li Yu and Leon Murphy.  Like I mentioned above, we are planning to enrich the event by having a workshop at the AIM center before or following the Keystone symposium.

You can follow the Autophagy Center on Twitter and find out about announcements and current events on our Facebook page. You can also visit our website.

The founding ICAM members include: Eric H. Baehrecke (USA), Christian Behrends (Germany), Francesco Cecconi (Italy, Denmark), Patrice Codogno (France), Guang-Chao Chen (Taiwan), Zvulun Elazar (Israel), Eeva-Liisa Eskelinen (Finland) Bernard Fourie (South Africa), Devrim Gozuacik (Turkey), Wanjin Hong (Singapore), Gokhan Hotamisligi (USA), Marja Jäättelä (Denmark), Terje Johansen (Norway), Eun-Kyeong Jo (South Korea), Gábor Juhász (Hungary), Daniel Klionsky (USA), Nicholas Ktistakis (UK), Adi Kimchi (Israel), Guido Kroemer (France, Sweden), Noboru Mizushima (Japan), Christian Münz (Switzerland), Kevin Ryan (UK), Fulvio Reggiori (The Netherlands), David Rubinsztein (UK), Kate Schroder (Australia), Anne Simonsen (Norway), Sharon Tooze (UK), Maria I. Vaccaro (Argentina), Tamotsu Yoshimori (Japan), Li Yu (China), and Hong Zhang (China).