Newswise — Gorbunova is internationally recognized for her research on the mechanics of aging, which specifically focuses on DNA repair, genomic instability, and cancer. In recent papers involving her groundbreaking work on the naked mole rat, she attributed the rodent’s longevity to a process that results in nearly perfect protein synthesis, and traced the animal’s cancer resistance to a unique form of polysaccharide, hyaluronan, produced by its cells.
Gorbunova earned her Ph.D. from the Department of Plant Genetics at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel in 1999. She joined the faculty at the University of Rochester in 2004, becoming a full professor eight years later.
Among Gorbunova’s numerous honors are: the Glenn Foundation Award for Research in Biological Mechanisms of Aging, the Cozzarelli Prize for an exceptional biomedical research paper, the Ellison Medical Foundation’s Senior Scholar Award in Aging, the ADPS/Allianz Prize for research on aging, and the Prince Hitachi Prize in comparative oncology.
Video: Could the Cure for Cancer be Found in Naked Mole Rats?
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