DECEMBER 2024 NEWS

DISCOVERIES

Your immune cells are what they eat

“You know the saying, ‘You are what you eat’? Well, we uncovered a way in which this actually operates in cells,” says Salk Professor Susan Kaech. “This is really exciting on two levels: On a fundamental level, our findings show that a cell’s function can be directly linked to its nutrition; on a more specific level, this sheds new light on how T cells become dysfunctional or exhausted and what we could do to prevent that.”

Kaech’s latest study appeared in Science earlier this month.

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SALK'S PODCAST BEYOND LAB WALLS

Join hosts Isabella Davis and Nicole Mlynaryk on a journey behind the scenes of the renowned Salk Institute, delving into the captivating realms of cutting-edge neuroscience, plant biology, cancer research, and more. The Institute’s podcast immerses listeners in the fascinating world of science while showcasing the brilliant minds and dedicated staff who drive its groundbreaking discoveries.

This month’s episode of Beyond Lab Walls features Kay Watt, program manager of Salk’s Harnessing Plants Initiative. Watt spent many summers helping out in her family’s garden, but she hadn’t considered a career in plant biology until she joined the Peace Corps. Her experience working with subsistence farmers in Panama inspired a number of life changes and now motivates her work at Salk. Using both her scientific and business training, Watt supports the Initiative’s mission to harness the power of plants to sequester carbon out of the atmosphere and help fight climate change.

MEET A SALK SCIENTIST

In the monthly video series “From Then to When,” we bring you the unique stories of Salk researchers, from their personal journeys into science to their motivations and goals for the future.

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“I remember my dad when he was coaching us in football; we all made T-shirts that said effort is everything. And that’s really also what I tell the people that I train in the lab is that, you know, your effort is everything in this mission,” says Hollern. “I came into this field just very naïve—I just knew I wanted to do cancer research and I was going to work harder than I ever could to make sure that that happened. So, I remember when it came to me and I said I was going to start a laboratory—everybody looked at me like I was crazy.”

And Daniel Hollern did start that laboratory, here at Salk, where he’s now an assistant professor and member of the Salk Cancer Center. Learn more about Hollern in this episode of “From Then to When,” or check out his podcast episode and Inside Salk magazine feature.

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SPOTLIGHT

Salk President and Professor Gerald Joyce elected Honorary Member of the Royal Irish Academy

Founded in 1785, the Royal Irish Academy serves to advance learning and scholarship in Ireland. Among the Academy’s duties, it recognizes outstanding research achievements and promotes awareness of the positive impact of science on our lives. Joyce will now be a part of this mission and will be formally inducted in a 2025 ceremony in Dublin.

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Professor Ronald Evans named winner of 2025 Kimberly Prize

Granted by Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and the Simpson Querrey Institute for Epigenetics, the annual award recognizes a scientist who has made a molecular discovery that improves human health. For Evans, that discovery is of nuclear hormone receptors and following characterization, which has opened the doors to many new drug innovations and united the field of endocrine physiology. Evans will receive a $250,000 prize and deliver a public lecture on the Feinberg campus in Chicago in April 2025.

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Innovation and Collaboration Grants

Three new Innovation and Collaboration Grants have been awarded this season: Salk President Gerald Joyce and Associate Professor Dmitry Lyumkis have proposed a new method to capture, for the first time, how RNA remodels itself through evolution; Assistant Professor Daniel Hollern is working on an innovative solution to work around the lack of recognizable immune system targets on tumor cells: taking control of the immune system’s B cells and causing them to release anti-tumor antibodies that can mark cancerous cells; and Research Professor Todd Michael is generating plant artificial chromosomes that hold hundreds to thousands of genes to revolutionize scientists’ ability to address fundamental questions about plant evolution—a critical line of inquiry as Salk researchers work to improve crop plant stability and resilience in the face of climate change.

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Natanella Illouz-Eliaz earns National Institutes of Health grant

Illouz-Eliaz, a postdoctoral researcher in Professor Joseph Ecker’s lab, has received an NIH Pathway to Independence Award (K99/R00) for her project “Reversing the irreversible: Reshaping plant growth upon recovery from severe stress.” The award provides up to five years of grant support, consisting of a mentor phase and independent research phase.

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INSIDE SALK MAGAZINE

The winter 2024 edition of Inside Salk is on the way! Marking the end of our “Year of Healthy Aging,” this upcoming issue shines a light on neuroimmunology—an exciting cross-disciplinary field that pairs immune and nervous systems to ask questions about human health and disease. Beyond a feature on this emerging research area, we chat with Salk Fellow Talmo Pereira about his AI-based motion-tracking technology, Harnessing Plants Initiative’s Program Manager Kay Watt about mitigating climate change, and postdoctoral researcher Pau Esparza-Moltó about mitochondria’s role in healthy aging. While you wait for the winter 2024 issue of Inside Salk, visit the fall issue of Inside Salk online now to learn how Salk scientists are shaking up Alzheimer’s research. Read Inside Salk online or join our mailing list for print editions.

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2024 has been a year of advancing plant biology that contribute to the fight against climate change, developing entirely novel ways to study the brain, strategizing how to improve current treatments for cancer and chronic illness, learning how we can live healthier, longer lives, recognizing faculty with internationally renowned prizes, and much more.

We are providing a serene view of the Salk courtyard for your computer, iPad, phone, or watch. Please enjoy this peaceful image while we look ahead to 2025, where the questions, answers, and accolades of 2024 will guide our scientists toward new frontiers, paving the way for world-changing discoveries to come.

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