Holly M. Brown-Borg
Physiologist who measures how reduced growth-hormone signalling changes lifespan and what keeps long-lived mutant mice healthy
Chester Fritz Distinguished Professor, Department of Biomedical Sciences, University of North Dakota School of Medicine & Health Sciences (since 2010) · Associate Professor, University of North Dakota (2002–2010) · Assistant Professor, University of North Dakota (1995–2002) · Research Associate, Physiology, Southern Illinois University School of Medicine · PhD, Physiology, North Carolina State University · MS, Animal Science, University of Nebraska–Lincoln · BS, University of Nebraska–Lincoln · President, American Aging Association (2010–2011) · Fellow, Gerontological Society of America (2006) · Denham Harman Lifetime Achievement Research Award (2013)
Portrait: University of North Dakota School of Medicine and Health Sciences
Brown-Borg is the first author of the 1996 Nature letter that reported Ames dwarf mice living far longer than their normal littermates. These mice carry a mutation in the Prop1 gene, so their pituitary never develops properly and never makes growth hormone, prolactin or thyroid-stimulating hormone. The size difference had been known for decades; what her lifespan curves showed was that the mutants outlived their siblings by roughly half again as long. She did the work with Andrzej Bartke, in whose group she trained before opening her own lab in North Dakota.
The result mattered because it turned a vague idea into a measurable one. If switching off a single growth-signalling hormone adds years to a mammal, then growth and lifespan are traded against each other by a specific, findable pathway. Less growth hormone means less circulating IGF-1, which means less signalling through PI3K, AKT and mTOR - the same nutrient-sensing chain that flies, worms and yeast use to decide between building and maintaining.
Her lab now works on why those mice are durable rather than merely small. It studies their antioxidant defences, especially glutathione handling, their methionine metabolism, mitochondrial function and DNA-methylation patterns, and asks which of these track with healthspan in muscle, liver and brain rather than with body size.
Milestones in the Atlas
| Year | Evidence | Study |
|---|---|---|
| 1996 | A | Dwarf mice and the ageing process BRO1996 First author of the Nature letter reporting that growth-hormone-deficient Ames dwarf mice outlive their normal littermates, the founding lifespan measurement for this line of work. |
Co-authors in the Atlas
People with a profile here who share at least one study with Holly M. Brown-Borg.
- Andrzej Bartke Endocrinologist who showed that Ames dwarf mice, which lack growth hormone because of a single-gene mutation, live much longer than normal mice
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On the programme
Meetings in the Atlas calendar where Holly M. Brown-Borg is listed among the speakers or organisers.
- past AGE 54th Annual Meeting 2026 (American Aging Association) ↗ 2–5 Jun 2026 · Provo, Utah, USA · ★★