Over three decades, Sue Acton has built a career uncovering biology’s hidden signals, discoveries that have reshaped fields and changed medicine. “The idea that I might be the first person in the world to know something about us as human beings — that is just thrilling.” Her sleuthing has led to discoveries that span cardiovascular disease, a global pandemic, and now the frontier of brain health.
From HDL Cholesterol to ACE2
After earning her degree from UCSF, Acton pursued a postdoctoral fellowship at MIT, where she identified scavenger receptor B1, the long-sought HDL cholesterol receptor — a protein that removes excess cholesterol from the body. The finding earned a publication in Science, coverage in the New York Times, and helped rejuvenate the field of reverse cholesterol transport. “Statins have been phenomenal in reducing heart attacks,” she says, “but they haven’t eliminated them. Understanding how HDL removes excess cholesterol could help us go even further.” Then, at Millennium Pharmaceuticals, Acton and her colleagues discovered ACE2, a protein involved in blood pressure regulation. Years later, ACE2 became known worldwide as the receptor the SARS-CoV-2 virus uses to enter human cells. “This is why basic science is so important,” she says. “You never know when something discovered early on will become critical later.”
Targeting Brain Inflammation
Today, as head of neuroinflammation research at Adiso Therapeutics, Acton is chasing the next piece of the puzzle: a live biotherapeutic agent — a beneficial bacterium — that she believes is involved in the gut-brain axis and turns down the chronic inflammation underlying Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, ALS, and other neurodegenerative diseases. Two principles in research, she says, are non-negotiable: curiosity and perseverance. “Curiosity in science is key. If you don’t have it, you will not be a good scientist. And perseverance. Experiments fail. If you give up, you will never succeed.”
