Please join us in person as GMGI comes to Gloucester City Hall’s Kyrouz Auditorium! Doors open at 5:30pm, presentation begins at 6pm.

The oceans are home to the Earth’s longest-lived animals, including some that can live for centuries or even millennia. Remarkably, these long-lived marine animals remain healthy and disease-free throughout their lives. Understanding how these animals achieve this extraordinary feat promises to reveal effective strategies to combat aging and to prevent age-related diseases.

At GMGI we are using sea urchins as a model to understand mechanisms of healthy aging. Sea urchins have a long history as research models and have significantly contributed to science’s understanding of many biological processes, leading to two Nobel Prize winning discoveries. Sea urchins are also commercially fished, with fisheries data showing continual growth and reproduction throughout their lives with no signs of aging and no reported cases of cancer. Despite this apparent “negligible aging”, different species of sea urchins are reported to have very different lifespans, ranging from 2 to greater than 200 years. By comparing short- and long-lived species our results are unveiling genetic and cellular mechanisms that promote life-long good health and cancer resistance.

Given the close genetic relationship between sea urchins and humans, our findings could ultimately translate to preventative or therapeutic strategies for human age-related diseases and promote a long and healthy life.

Join us as we hear from Dr. Andrea Bodnar, the Donald G. Comb Science Director at GMGI, and learn how sea urchins can help us unlock the secrets of healthy aging.

You can also view this presentation via Livestream through our partners at 1623! Livestream link to come.