Andrei Seluanov

Impact

Andrei Seluanov is a University of Rochester biologist who, in a long-running joint laboratory with Vera Gorbunova, studies how long-lived and cancer-resistant mammals achieve their longevity. The group's work on the naked mole-rat, a rodent with a maximum lifespan of about 30 years, identified 'early contact inhibition' as an anticancer mechanism and characterised the role of high-molecular-weight hyaluronan. In 2023 the team reported in Nature that transferring the naked mole-rat hyaluronan synthase gene into mice improved health and extended lifespan, a proof of principle that longevity mechanisms evolved in one species can be exported to another. Other lines of work include SIRT6 and genome stability, telomerase regulation in long-lived rodents such as the grey squirrel, and comparative approaches to Peto's paradox, the question of why large, long-lived species do not develop more cancer. Recent collaborative work links LINE-1 retrotransposon derepression and cGAS-dependent inflammation to aging (Nature Aging, 2026). For longevity readers he is a key contributor to comparative biology of aging and to the idea of mining naturally long-lived species for interventions.

Metrics

• h-index 78 · google scholar as of 2026-09-23 source ↗

Research funding

40 NIH awards · USD 16M total NIH RePORTER ↗

• Regulation of epigenome stability by SIRT6 during Aging National Institute on Aging · 2026 · USD 693K
• Regulation of epigenome stability by SIRT6 during Aging National Institute on Aging · 2024 · USD 693K
• Regulation of epigenome stability by SIRT6 during Aging National Institute on Aging · 2025 · USD 679K
• Novel animal models of brain longevity and Alzheimer's disease National Institute on Aging · 2024 · USD 642K
• Novel animal models of brain longevity and Alzheimer's disease National Institute on Aging · 2026 · USD 632K

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