The naked mole-rat (Bathyergidae; Heterocephalus glaber ) is an extremophilic rodent that lives an extraordinarily long and healthy life despite having evolved in harsh, arid, underground conditions. This ~ 31-million-year evolutionary path and concomitant adaptations have surprisingly yielded a broad suite of cytoprotective mechanisms that have enabled them to avoid cancer. Compared to above-ground dwelling species, the incid...

The Damaraland mole-rat (DMR; Fukomys damarensis ) is a long-lived (~ 20 years) Bathyergid rodent that diverged 26 million years ago from its close relative, the naked mole-rat (NMR). While the properties of NMR cultured fibroblasts have been extensively studied and have revealed several unusual features of this cancer-resistant, long-lived species, comparative DMR studies are extremely limited. We optimized conditions for suc...

The naked mole-rat ( Heterocephalus glaber ) is a mouse-sized rodent species, notable for its eusociality and long lifespan. Previously, we reported that demographic aging, i.e., the exponential increase of mortality hazard that accompanies advancing age in mammals and other organisms, does not occur in naked mole-rats (Ruby et al., 2018), a finding that has potential implications for human healthy aging. The demographic data...

The prevalence of cardiovascular disease increases exponentially with age, highlighting the contribution of aging mechanisms to cardiac diseases. Although model organisms which share human disease pathologies can elucidate mechanisms driving disease, they do not provide us with innate examples how cardiac aging might be slowed or attenuated. The identification of animal models that preserve cardiac function throughout most of...