Michael Sack, M.D., Ph.D.

The Role of Caloric-Dependent Regulation in the Control of Metabolic and Mitochondrial Homeostasis:

My laboratory focuses on understanding, at the basic and clinical level, how nutrient-sensing programs control immune cell function. At the basic science level my laboratory focusses on the role of the nutrient-sensing Sirtuin enzymes, and a counter-regulatory protein, BLOC1S1/GCN5L1, which modulate mitochondrial and endosome-lysosome functions. In the clinic, we use different caloric-load strategies and/or the NAD+ precursor, nicotinamide riboside, to explore immunometabolism and immunomodulation, in both healthy individuals and in inflammatory/autoimmune disease states. The longer-term goal is to exploit these pathways to blunt inflammation and auto-immunity in human disease.

Michael Sack graduated with his M.B.B.Ch. and M.Sc. from the University of Witwatersrand and earned his Ph.D. in 2000 from the University of Cape Town in South Africa. He did his internship at Johannesburg General Hospital and his internal medicine residency at Georgetown University Medical Center. He conducted cardiology research and did a clinical fellowship at Washington University Medical Center from 1994 to 1997. Dr. Sack joined the NHLBI in 2003. Dr. Sack has authored or coauthored more than 100 papers, editorials, reviews, and book chapters. He currently sits on the editorial boards of the Journal of Molecular and Cellular Cardiology, Mitochondrion, Journal of Gerontology, and Drug Discovery Today and is a member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation.