How Mitochondria Control Your Metabolism | Dr. Jared Rutter
Dr. Jared Rutter, a professor of biochemistry and HHMI investigator, joins Andrew Huberman to explain the nuanced biology of cellular metabolism and mitochondria. They discuss how individual cells balance energy production against biomass generation, the discovery of the mitochondrial pyruvate carrier (MPC), and how metabolic dysregulation drives diseases such as heart failure, cancer, and accelerated aging.
- Jared Rutter identified MPC1 and MPC2, solving a 60-year mystery around how pyruvate enters mitochondria across yeast, fruit flies, and mammals. Read →
- Dr. Jared Rutter explains that pyruvate inside cells faces two main paths: oxidation inside mitochondria or conversion into lactate. Read →
- Dr. Jared Rutter explains that flooding mitochondria with more chemical energy than they can convert into ATP pushes them into an unstable, electron-dense state. Read →
- Glycolysis ends at a single chemical junction: pyruvate. Read →
- Human metabolism is the collective output of roughly 30 trillion individual cells, rather than a single unified internal furnace. Read →
- Otto Warburg's 1920s hypothesis claimed broken mitochondria cause cancer, but modern biochemistry shows tumor mitochondria actively redirect resources into biomass rather than ATP. Read →