Project Overview

Oxygen is essential for life, yet its availability is not constant. In humans, even short periods without oxygen can lead to severe damage, particularly in sensitive tissues such as the brain, contributing to conditions like stroke, heart disease, and neurodegeneration. Surprisingly, many organisms across the animal kingdom routinely survive prolonged periods of low oxygen—or even complete absence of oxygen—without suffering lasting harm.

URC-Hypoxia seeks to understand how this is possible.

This project focuses on uncovering the molecular mechanisms that allow certain organisms to tolerate hypoxia. In particular, it investigates how cells detect and respond to oxygen deprivation through changes in redox biology—the balance between reactive oxygen species (ROS) and antioxidant defenses that regulate cellular function. While ROS are often associated with damage, they also play essential roles as signaling molecules, helping cells adapt to stress.

A central idea guiding this research is that the earliest moments of oxygen deprivation are critical. Instead of looking only at long-term outcomes, URC-Hypoxia captures rapid, time-resolved snapshots of what happens inside cells during the transition to low oxygen. By mapping these early events, the project aims to identify key molecular switches that determine whether cells are damaged or protected.

To achieve this, the project uses the hypoxia-tolerant insect model Tenebrio molitor, which can survive extended periods without oxygen. By combining approaches from redox biology, transcriptomics, and proteomics, URC-Hypoxia builds a comprehensive picture of how gene expression, protein function, and oxidative modifications change over time during hypoxia and reoxygenation.

Importantly, the insights gained from this model are not limited to insects. Many of the underlying cellular processes are evolutionarily conserved, meaning they are shared across species, including humans. The project therefore goes a step further by testing selected molecular targets in human cell models, particularly those relevant to the central nervous system, to explore whether these natural resilience mechanisms can be translated into strategies to protect human cells.

By bridging comparative biology and biomedical research, URC-Hypoxia aims to reveal how nature has solved the problem of surviving without oxygen—and how these solutions might one day help us better understand and treat hypoxia-related diseases.