Rozalyn M. Anderson
Professor of medicine at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who studies the basic biology of aging and how calorie restriction slows it, and senior author of the 2017 comparison of the two long-running rhesus monkey calorie restriction studies
Professor, Division of Geriatrics and Gerontology, Department of Medicine, University of Wisconsin-Madison · Health Officer, Geriatric Research, Education and Clinical Center, William S. Middleton Memorial Veterans Hospital, Madison · earlier: postdoctoral fellow, UW-Madison Institute on Aging · postdoctoral fellow, Harvard Medical School (David Sinclair's group, papers 2002–2003) · PhD in biochemistry, University College Dublin
Rozalyn Anderson was senior author of a 2017 Nature Communications paper (MAT2017) that resolved an apparent conflict between two of the longest experiments in aging research. One group at the National Institute on Aging (NIA) and one at the University of Wisconsin had followed rhesus monkeys on calorie restriction, eating less without malnutrition, for decades. Wisconsin had reported longer survival and the NIA had not. Analysing both studies side by side, the paper found consistent health benefits in both, and showed that the survival effect depended on study design and on what the control monkeys were fed.
Calorie restriction is the oldest known way to slow aging in animals, and lower mTORC1 activity is one of the routes through which it is thought to work. Monkeys are much closer to humans than mice are, so this comparison is among the strongest primate evidence that eating less improves health. It leaves open how large any lifespan gain would be.
Anderson earned a PhD in biochemistry at University College Dublin. As a postdoctoral fellow in David Sinclair's group at Harvard Medical School she worked on calorie restriction in yeast, and in 2003 she was first author of papers in Nature and Science showing that the enzyme PNC1, which removes nicotinamide, is needed for calorie restriction to extend yeast lifespan, and that this effect does not depend on swings in the cell's NAD+ to NADH ratio. A second postdoctoral fellowship at the UW-Madison Institute on Aging moved her to the mechanisms by which calorie restriction delays aging in mammals. She is now a professor in the Division of Geriatrics and Gerontology of the Department of Medicine, a faculty member of the Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism, and Health Officer at the Geriatric Research, Education and Clinical Center of the Madison VA hospital. Her lab asks why aging makes people more vulnerable to cancer, diabetes, heart disease and neurodegeneration. Recent papers cover how calorie restriction remodels the mouse brain, how an acetyl-CoA transporter in the endoplasmic reticulum changes neuron metabolism, and sex differences in aging.
Milestones in the Atlas
A selection, not a full bibliography: only papers that meet the Atlas inclusion criteria.
| Year | Evidence | Study |
|---|---|---|
| 2017 | A | Caloric restriction improves health and survival of rhesus monkeys MAT2017 Senior author: led the joint analysis of the NIA and Wisconsin monkey studies, which found consistent health benefits of calorie restriction and a survival effect that depended on study design. |
Co-authors in the Atlas 3
People with a profile here who share at least one study with Rozalyn M. Anderson.
ShowHide
- David B. Allison Biostatistician and obesity researcher, long at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and later dean of public health at Indiana University, known for work on nutrition, obesity and research rigour
- Julie A. Mattison Primate aging researcher at the US National Institute on Aging who led the NIA study of calorie restriction in rhesus monkeys and its comparison with the Wisconsin study
- Rafael de Cabo Aging researcher at the US National Institute on Aging who has studied calorie restriction, fasting and drugs that mimic them in mice and rhesus monkeys, including the long-running NIA monkey study
Every researcher with a profile →
Thank you. That helps us know which pages have been read by someone who knows the work.
Thank you. We will check it and correct the page.
Thank you. Your answer was counted anonymously.