The Chiaramello Laboratory

The Chiaramello laboratory is housed within the Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology at the George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences in Washington, D.C.

Our team is dedicated to mitochondrial research through the three following main axes:

  1. Mitochondrial homeostasis in differentiating neurons
  2. Translational research on rare and inherited mitochondrial diseases, such as MELAS and LHON-Plus
  3. Small molecule and epigenetic-based therapeutic approaches

We founded the Mito-EpiGen Program, which is housed at the GW School of Medicine and Health Sciences. Its mission is to advance our understanding of these rare inherited mitochondrial diseases and our quest for novel therapeutic interventions.

In collaboration with Children’s National Medical Center, we have built a biobank of fibroblasts derived from skin biopsies performed on patients genetically diagnosed with a mitochondrial disease to serve as ex vivo cellular systems for designing therapeutic approaches to mitigate the energy deficit in these patients.

These incurable childhood-onset progressive neurodegenerative diseases result in heterogeneous clinical symptoms and devastating multi-organ failure. Current palliative therapies cannot prevent the progression of these mitochondrial diseases.

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Research Interests

Learn about our research interests, including mitochondrial homeostasis and epigenetic-based therapeutic approaches.

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Publications

View a list of our publications.