Areas of Specialty:
Comparative and evolutionary biology of aging
Long-lived models of attenuated aging
Inflammaging and its impact upon age-related chronic diseases
Cardiac and metabolic aging
Rochelle Buffenstein, PhD
Dr. Rochelle Buffenstein is a distinguished Research Professor at the University of Illinois Chicago. Dr. Buffenstein, is renowned for her pioneering research on the naked mole-rat's exceptional longevity, their unusual immune system, and resistance to age-related diseases. Her expertise lies in comparative and evolutionary biology, focusing on aging, inflammaging, proteostasis, and the molecular mechanisms that enable certain mammals to maintain healthspan and resist age-associated functional deterioration and age-related diseases such as cancer, neurodegeneration, and heart disease. In doing so, she has established the naked mole-rat as a key model organism in biomedical research. She maintains the world’s largest captive colony of these animals, and has generously provided thousands of these rodents to laboratories worldwide, fostering global research efforts in aging and longevity.