Professor Vera Gorbunova

Vera Gorbunova, Ph.D. is Doris Johns Cherry Professor of Biology and Associate Professor of Oncology at the University of Rochester. She is on the Editorial Boards of Pathobiology of Aging and Age-related Diseases (PBA), Aging Cell, Aging, Oncotarget: Gerotarget, and Frontiers in Genetics | Genetics of Aging.
 
Her research interests include mechanisms of aging, comparative biology of aging, comparative biology of aging, DNA repair and genomic instability, and anticancer therapy.
 
Aging is one of the biggest mysteries of biology. “Why we age?” is a basic biological question, and at the same time it is highly medically relevant. Aging is associated with an accumulation of mutations and genomic instability. Vera studies age-related changes in repair of DNA double-strand breaks using human cells and transgenic mice. She is also using comparative approach to study aging by analyzing short- and long-lived animal species. Finally, as aging is associated with increased cancer incidence, she studies DNA repair in breast cancer cells, and anti-cancer mechanisms in short- and long-lived rodents.
 
Vera’s papers include SIRT6 promotes DNA repair under stress by activating PARP1, Sirtuin 6 (SIRT6) rescues the decline of homologous recombination repair during replicative senescence, Cancer resistance in the blind mole rat is mediated by concerted necrotic cell death mechanism, DNA repair by homologous recombination, but not by nonhomologous end joining, is elevated in breast cancer cells, Replicatively senescent cells are arrested in G1 and G2 phases, Telomerase activity coevolves with body mass not lifespan, Naked mole-rat has increased translational fidelity compared with the mouse, as well as a unique 28S ribosomal RNA cleavage, and Repairing split ends: SIRT6, mono-ADP ribosylation and DNA repair.
 
Vera earned her BS from Saint Petersburg State University and her Ph.D. from the Weizmann Institute of Science.
 
Watch Why some animals of the same order live much longer than others? | Vera Gorbunova | TEDxCannes and Interview with Dr. Vera Gorbunova.