At Universidad Mayor, Chile, based on the solid expertise I have accumulated through the years in mitochondrial physiology I have begun to develop a new line of research focused on the study of commensal microbiota effects on mitochondrial fitness during aging. More specifically, I have been studying the role of commensal bacteria in mitochondrial and oxidative stress related to sarcopenia, a subject which with I have applied to fondecyt and am preparing a manuscript that will soon be sent out for publication. Simultaneously, as the Academic Director of the Microscopy Hub, I am disseminating the use of our newly acquired light-sheet microscope, the only one of its kind in South America, to researchers in the region. With a grant from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative that I lead, I am building a lightsheet microscopy hub in South America. We want to increase global access to bioimaging, and as a part of this objective we organize webinars, workshops and conferences. We plan to build an affordable and portable light sheet microscope called the Flamingo, for which I have applied for more funding from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative with our collaborators in Germany, who develop these instruments. With this prototype we will disseminate the use of light sheet microscopy not only in Chile, but also in Brazil and Uruguay where we have established collaborations. By traveling with the Flamingo to various courses and conferences and to collaborating laboratories we hope to spread the usefulness of this technology in answering many scientific questions. My hybrid role in scientific research and developing/managing microscopy equipment is in line with the work I have been involved with since my PhD, during which I managed our confocal microscope at the facility at UMASS, while I studied how pH regulates the cytoskeleton and controls pollen tube growth (Lovy-Wheeler 2005, 2006, 2007). Then, at Tufts School of Medicine, I helped to expand the facility by successfully obtaining a shared instrumentation grant (S10) to acquire a new confocal microscope as well as a TIRFM (total internal reflection microscope) system. Until 2019, I oversaw 4 confocal microscopes, 1 TIRFM and 4 epifluorescent microscopes, including a fast-stitching Keyence microscope. As a research assistant professor at Tufts School of Medicine, managing the imaging facility since 2007 helped me develop many collaborations, one of which has been with Dr. J. Cesar Cardenas. For the past several years we have been investigating the effects of InsP(3)R-released calcium events on mitochondrial fusion and fission, as related to cancer and cell survival. I developed a mitochondrial fusion assay to study the phenomenon of mitochondrial fusion at a high resolution in multiple cells simultaneously (Lovy, 2012), and have obtained interesting results of mitochondrial behavior during InsP3R inhibition (Lovy, 2020). Using TIRF imaging I have been able to demonstrate that the presence of basal calcium sparks from the ER is indicative of a healthy metabolic homeostasis and in the absence of this basal phenomenon, cells enter a bioenergetic crisis in which normal cells can survive, but cancer cells tend to die (Cardenas, 2016) and (Lovy, 2016). The absence of this Ca2+ signal decreases mitochondrial respiration leading to a higher NAD+/NADH ratio, activating SIRT1 which in turn deacetylates cortactin inducing fragmentation of the mitochondrial network (Lovy, 2020). In addition, we have characterized constitutive IP3R-mediated Ca2+ release in mitochondria of OXPHOS-incompetent cells. Surprisingly, these cells are still able to generate NADH, through the Ca2+ sensitive alpha-ketoglutarate dehydrogenase, which is essential to maintain their viability. Inhibition of IP3R-mediated mitochondrial Ca2+ uptake causes a significant amount of cell death in these cells. We propose that mitochondrial Ca2+ uptake and the IP3R-MCU pathway could be new therapeutic targets in cancer (Cardenas and Lovy, 2020).