In a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences on November 5, Vera Gorbunova, PhD, uncovered a cellular mechanism that keeps the blind mole rat, an exceptionally long-lived rodent, from developing cancer. When she and her team created cultures of blind mole rat tissue, the release of the molecule interferon-beta triggered coordinated cell death, preventing the uncontrolled proliferation of cancerous cells. Interestingly, this is distinct from the previously discovered cancer-prevention mechanism in the cells of the naked mole rat, a different long-lived and cancerfree rodent. The work was reported in the Wired and Nature blogs. Dr. Gorbunova is a Professor of Biology at the University of Rochester and the recipient of an AFAR-Upstate New York Research Grant.
