Vera Gorbunova
Vera Gorbunova is a biologist. As the Doris Johns Cherry Professor at the University of Rochester, Gorbunova identified high molecular weight hyaluronan as the key mediator of cancer resistance in the naked mole rat. Early life and education Gorbunova completed her Bachelor of Science degree at Saint Petersburg State University and her Ph.D. at the Weizmann Institute of Science. During her doctoral studies, Gorbunova and professor Avi Levy investigated the genetic mutations of plants in comparison to mammals. Following this, she completed her Postdoctoral Fellowship at McGill University in the Hekimi Lab. Career In 2004, Gorbunova and Andrei Seluanov established a research laboratory at the University of Rochester to study the evolution of tumour suppressor mechanisms in rodents. Two years later, Gorbunova conducted a study which discovered that the enzyme telomerase had a more significant correlation with body mass than longevity. She revealed that one's body mass caused a greater risk of cancer than one's lifespan. She continued her focus on cancer cells and co-developed a gene that produced a thousand times more protein in cancer cells than in healthy cells. In 2008, her research team stripped the protein RAD51 and replaced it with a marker protein DNA which killed