The tree · Energy and fuel sensing
Fresh mitochondria are transplanted into a person's failing tissue
Mitochondria are the cell's power plants, and they fail with age; one way around that is to put fresh ones in. From 2009 to 2016 a Boston group showed, first in rabbit hearts kept alive in a dish and then in living rabbits and pigs, that mitochondria taken from a healthy muscle and injected into the heart during a heart attack were taken up by the heart cells and helped the heart recover. In 2017 the same group reported the first people: five babies and young children whose hearts had failed after surgery, given mitochondria from their own abdominal muscle, four of whom came off the heart-lung machine. It is a first human on a function, in a desperate setting, with no control group. Whether the same could refresh an old person's tissues is what the leaf tracks.
What would count
A person given an infusion or injection of mitochondria into a failing tissue afterwards has a measurable improvement in that tissue's function, in a peer-reviewed report. The animal rung is the same in a living animal. For the clinic rung: a regulator approves mitochondrial transplantation for any condition.
Who settles it: Peer-reviewed reports; the trial registry; the regulator's approval record for the clinic rung.
Where it stands
First human. Reached July 2017, on the record of Emani and 4 others, 15 February 2017 (doi.org). Next rung within 5 to 20 years.
When it reaches the clinic: the project's estimate
This is the one thing on this page that is a judgment rather than a record. The project's estimate of the year it reaches the clinic is 2045, no earlier than 2033 and no later than 2095; the model draws from that range every run, with the likely year the most probable draw. Set 16 October 2026, a first pass awaiting an outside review.
| Rung | No earlier than | Most likely | No later than | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| In clinical use | 2033 | 2045 | 2095 | feeds the year at the top |
Why. Several early trials were running in 2026 with no controlled result; the likely year assumes one in heart surgery or stroke reports positive around 2033 and an approval for that setting follows in the mid 2040s. The earliest assumes a fast route through paediatric heart surgery, where the procedure began; the latest allows for the transplanted organelles never being shown to do more than a signal, and the leaf resting at first human.
Changes to this record
None since it was written on 16 October 2026. Every change to the stage or the estimate lands here with its date, the old value, the new one and the reason, and a change to the estimate never happens because a number looked wrong: it needs a dated reason and a source.
The last readings
- 17 October 2026 Quiet
Nothing in the window: no peer-reviewed report of a person's tissue function improving after a mitochondrial transplant, and no regulator's approval, dated 2026-10-10 to 2026-10-17 was found. Older items seen and falling short: an Iranian registry entry dated 2026-06-03 for a planned randomised, blinded phase I study of platelet-derived mitochondria in about ten stroke patients (a protocol, safety outcomes only); a phase 1 study of the product MNV-201 in low-risk myelodysplastic syndrome reported at the December 2025 haematology meeting with five patients and no control group; and a 2026 Nature paper on cell-type-targeted mitochondrial transplantation whose functional evidence is from cells and mice. Nothing was found on the Taiwan trial the verify list asks about.source 1, source 2, source 3
What the story so far says about it
On the record
- 15 February 2017Autologous mitochondrial transplantation for dysfunction after ischemia-reperfusion injury
Notes
This is a different thing from the mitochondrial replacement used in fertility clinics (a donor's mitochondria put into an egg), which is reproduction, not repair, and is not on this tree. The leaf's hard problem is that injected mitochondria do not last; whether they help by being taken up or by signalling is still argued.
Not yet verified
These facts in the record were written from memory or from a secondary source and have not yet been checked against the paper, the regulator's record or the registry. Nothing here is presented as settled until it is cleared, by checking it and either deleting the line or correcting the record.
- That trials of mitochondrial transplantation have treated people in stroke (United States), heart attack (Iran) and muscle disease (Korea) is confirmed; whether a trial in Taiwan exists is unchecked, and note that a small randomised heart-attack trial (Iran, 2024) has reported a controlled result.