Frontiers Getting to the root of Alzheimer’s

In Memoriam Salk mourns the loss of Joan Jacobs

Observations Axel Nimmerjahn Widening perspectives through plane windows and microscope lenses

Insights Jálin Johnson Enhancing equity and inclusion at Salk and beyond

Next Gen Lara Labarta-Bajo An immunologist’s journey from Barcelona and ballet to the brain

Gratitude Professor or partner? Luc Jansen’s switch from science to law

Belonging Rising Stars and DISCOVER programs provide new opportunities for trainees from underserved backgrounds

In this issue

Frontiers

Getting to the root of Alzheimer’s

Salk scientists are teaming up to understand brain aging. By collaborating across disciplines like genetics, neuroscience, and immunology, our researchers are uniquely positioned to lead us into a future of healthier aging and effective therapeutics for Alzheimer’s.

In Memoriam

Salk mourns the loss of Joan Jacobs

The Salk Institute lost one of its greatest supporters and one of San Diego’s most generous philanthropists when Joan Jacobs died on May 6, 2024, in La Jolla, California. She was 91 years old.

Observations

Axel Nimmerjahn—Widening perspectives through plane windows and microscope lenses

Inside Salk sat down with Nimmerjahn to hear how he went from curious child to world renowned researcher. Now a professor at Salk, he studies the central nervous system and designs new tools—like mini microscopes!—to study the system’s various cell types.

Insights

Jálin Johnson—Enhancing equity and inclusion at Salk and beyond

Over the course of nearly 30 years dedicated to advocacy work, Jálin B. Johnson has served those in need and has given a voice to the voiceless—a principle that has guided her throughout her career. This commitment continues to shape her work as she steps into the role of director of Salk’s Office of Equity & Inclusion.

Next Gen

Lara Labarta-Bajo—An immunologist’s journey from Barcelona and ballet to the brain

Whether dancing in Spain or surfing in San Diego, Lara Labarta-Bajo has always celebrated the power of the human body. Now a postdoctoral researcher in Associate Professor Nicola Allen’s lab at Salk, she studies how the immune system connects the body to the brain and how this relationship evolves as we age.

Gratitude

Professor or partner? Luc Jansen’s switch from science to law

Dashed dreams of medical school brought Jansen to Salk’s campus back in 2003, where he simultaneously contemplated a career in scientific research and a career in big law. Though he decided on law in the end, Jansen’s affection for Salk remains as he now hosts Salk gatherings in his New York City office and excitedly shares the enduring importance of basic science.

Belonging

Rising Stars and DISCOVER programs provide new opportunities for trainees from underserved backgrounds

The Salk Institute recently hosted two inaugural events designed to enhance diversity within the scientific community: the Rising Stars Symposium and the Diverse Inclusive Scientific Community Offering a Vision for an Ecosystem Reimagined (DISCOVER) Symposium. These programs support researchers from underrepresented populations through research presentations, mentorship opportunities, and novel recruitment mechanisms.

In the News

We are grateful to our many generous donors

To support research and diversity efforts, the Salk Institute received generous gifts from various foundations, including the NOMIS Foundation, Paul M. Angell Foundation, Wicklow Foundation, and Prebys Foundation.

President’s Letter

“As we continue the Salk Institute’s ‘Year of Healthy Aging,’ this issue focuses on Alzheimer’s disease, a devastating condition that directly affects nearly 7 million people in the United States.”

Gerald Joyce

President

View President’s letter

Discoveries

Neuroscience

More than just neurons: A new model for studying human brain inflammationNeurons only make up half of the human brain. The other half is composed of approximately 85 billion cells called glia. The most common type of glial cells are astrocytes, which are important for supporting neuronal health and activity. Despite the abundance of astrocytes in the brain, most existing laboratory models of the human brain fail to include astrocytes at sufficient levels or at all, which limits the models’ utility for studying brain health and disease. Now, Professor Rusty Gage, postdoctoral researchers Lei Zhang and Meiyan Wang, and colleagues have created 3D organoids that mimic features of the human brain and contain mature, functional astrocytes. With this astrocyte-rich model, researchers will be able to study stress and inflammation in aging and Alzheimer’s disease with greater depth and clarity than ever before. Already, the researchers have used the new organoids to reveal a relationship between astrocyte dysfunction and inflammation. This allowed them to identify a potentially druggable target for disrupting that relationship in the aging brain.See All

Cancer

Lung cancer hijacks immune cell metabolism to fuel its own growthLung adenocarcinoma is the most common lung cancer and the cause of most cancer-related deaths in the United States. There are several ways lung adenocarcinoma can arise, one of which involves a mutation in a protein called EGFR (epidermal growth factor receptor). Modern immunotherapies don’t work against EGFR-driven lung adenocarcinoma, and while other types of lung cancer drugs do exist, patients typically become resistant to them within a few years. Professors Susan Kaech and Christian Metallo, alongside Salk colleagues and collaborators at Yale University and UC Los Angeles, discovered that EGFR-driven lung adenocarcinoma hijacks immune cells called macrophages, pulling them into the tumor and turning them into cancer fuel suppliers. The findings could inspire new lung adenocarcinoma interventions that disrupt this tumor cell-macrophage relationship. They also suggest that treatments using EGFR inhibitors may be more successful when paired with statins, a class of drugs commonly used to lower cholesterol levels.See All

Plant Biology

Controlling root growth direction could help save crops and mitigate climate changeRoots are central to a plant’s survival and productivity, determining the plant’s access to nutrients and water and, therefore, its ability to tolerate nutrient depletion and extreme weather, like drought. Professor Wolfgang Busch, postdoctoral researcher Wenrong He, and colleagues recently determined how a well-known plant hormone controls the angle at which roots grow. The study is the first time the plant hormone, called ethylene, has been shown to be involved in regulating the lateral root angles that shape root systems—providing key insights for plant scientists looking to optimize root systems. Researchers in Salk’s Harnessing Plants Initiative now plan to target the ethylene signaling pathway in their efforts to engineer plants and crops that can withstand the environmental stresses of climate change and drought.See All

Computational Biology

Artificial intelligence helps scientists engineer plants to fight climate changeThe Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change declared that removing carbon from the atmosphere is now essential to fighting climate change and limiting global temperature rise. In support of these efforts, Salk scientists are harnessing plants’ natural ability to draw carbon dioxide out of the air by optimizing their root systems to store more carbon for a longer period of time. To design these climate-saving plants, scientists in Salk’s Harnessing Plants Initiative are using a sophisticated new research tool called SLEAP—an easy-to-use artificial intelligence (AI) software designed by Salk Fellow Talmo Pereira that tracks multiple features of root growth. Pereira, Professor Wolfgang Busch, bioinformatics analyst Elizabeth Berrigan, and colleagues have officially debuted a new protocol for using SLEAP to analyze plant root phenotypes—how deep and wide they grow, how massive their root systems become, and other physical qualities that, prior to SLEAP, were tedious to measure. Applying SLEAP to plants has already enabled the researchers to establish the most extensive catalog of plant root system phenotypes to date, giving Salk’s Harnessing Plants Initiative a powerful boost.See All

Immunobiology

Faulty DNA disposal system causes inflammationCells in the human body contain power-generating mitochondria, each with their own mtDNA—a unique set of genetic instructions that mitochondria use to create life-giving energy. When mtDNA remains where it belongs (inside mitochondria), it sustains both mitochondrial and cellular health; when it goes where it doesn’t belong, it can initiate an immune response that promotes inflammation. Now, Professor Gerald Shadel, Salk colleagues, and collaborators at UC San Diego and University of Virginia have discovered a mechanism that expels improperly functioning mtDNA from the mitochondria. When this happens, the mtDNA gets flagged as foreign DNA and activates an inflammatory pathway. This pathway is a promising target for new therapeutics that could disrupt or mitigate inflammation in aging or diseases like lupus or rheumatoid arthritis.See All

Biochemistry/ Biophysics

Modeling the origins of life: New evidence for an “RNA World”Scientists in the 1960s, including Salk Fellow Leslie Orgel, proposed that life began with the “RNA World”—a hypothetical era in which small, stringy RNA molecules ruled the early Earth and established the dynamics of Darwinian evolution. New research by Professor and Salk President Gerald Joyce, research associate Nikolaos Papastavrou, staff scientist David Horning, and colleagues provides fresh insights on the origins of life, presenting compelling evidence supporting the RNA World hypothesis. The recent study unveiled an RNA enzyme that can make accurate copies of other functional RNA strands while allowing new variants of the molecule to emerge over time. These remarkable capabilities suggest the earliest forms of evolution may have occurred on a molecular scale in RNA.See All

Spotlight

Professor Tony Hunter honored with American Association for Cancer Research Princess Takamatsu Memorial Lectureship Award

Hunter is an American Cancer Society professor and Renato Dulbecco Chair at Salk. He studies how cells regulate their growth and division and how mutations in genes that regulate cell growth lead to cancer. In 1979, his lab discovered that phosphate can be attached to the amino acid tyrosine in proteins—a finding that led to […]

Assistant Professor Christina Towers earns Lustgarten Award

Towers is an assistant professor and Richard Heyman and Anne Daigle Endowed Developmental Chair at Salk. She uses a combination of techniques to uncover how cancer cells recycle both their own nutrients and the power-generating structures called mitochondria in order to survive. Her goal is to develop targeted cancer therapies that kill cancer cells by […]

Professor Joanne Chory honored with Benjamin Franklin Medal in Life Science

Chory is a professor, director of the Plant Molecular and Cellular Biology Laboratory, founding director of Salk’s Harnessing Plants Initiative, Howard H. and Maryam R. Newman Chair in Plant Biology at Salk, and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator. She was honored by the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia with the Benjamin Franklin Medal in Life […]

Professor Terrence Sejnowski wins 2024 Brain Prize and other honors

Sejnowski is a professor, head of the Computational Neurobiology Laboratory, and Francis Crick Chair at Salk. He received the 2024 Brain Prize—the world’s largest neuroscience research prize—from the Lundbeck Foundation for “pioneering the field of computational and theoretical neuroscience, making seminal contributions to our understanding of the brain, and paving the way for the development […]

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Events

Salk Celebrates the Life of Distinguished Professor Emeritus Roger Guillemin

On May 3, the Salk Institute was honored to host a Celebration of Life for Nobel Laureate and Distinguished Professor Emeritus Roger Guillemin. The event featured a series of scientific lectures from fellow scientists and friends, as well as a remembrance, during which Guillemin’s family and friends shared personal stories and photos, and concluded with […]

The Science & (In)Justice of HIV/AIDS

On June 11, Salk held the second annual Salk Science & Justice program: “The Science & (In)Justice of HIV/AIDS.” The event featured San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria and Salk Associate Professor Dmitry Lyumkis, who discussed the intersection of research and social justice in relation to HIV and AIDS, held a Q&A with the audience, and […]

The Power of Persistence—Women Transforming Cancer Research and Care

In recognition of International Women’s Day, Salk and the Lustgarten Foundation cohosted a symposium that aimed to foster collaboration, mentorship, and the exchange of ideas to support the continued advancement of cancer research and care. The program was chaired by Elizabeth Jaffee, professor at Johns Hopkins University, and featured scientists from around the country, including […]