Researcher
Vera Gorbunova & Andrei Seluanov
Last updated Sat May 30 2026 00:00:00 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time)
Background
Vera Gorbunova and Andrei Seluanov are co-PIs of the Rochester Aging Research Center at the University of Rochester. They focus on comparative aging biology — what allows certain species to outlive their body-size-predicted lifespan.
Key contributions
- Naked mole-rat biology: identified the role of high-molecular- weight hyaluronic acid in cancer resistance; characterised early contact inhibition (ECI), translation fidelity, and proteostasis features.
- Blind mole-rat biology: identified concerted necroptosis as a cancer-suppression mechanism.
- Beaver longevity genomics.
- LINE-1 retrotransposon de-repression as a driver of inflammaging.
Why this work matters
Identifying species-specific longevity mechanisms suggests druggable targets that haven’t been on the field’s radar. Hyaluronan-based therapeutics and SIRT6-overexpression strategies are direct translational descendants of this lab’s work.
Related entries
References
- Seluanov, A., Gladyshev, V. N., Vijg, J. & Gorbunova, V. Mechanisms of cancer resistance in long-lived mammals. Nat. Rev. Cancer 18, 433–441 (2018).