Silvana Duran-Ortiz
Researcher in John Kopchick's group at Ohio University who studies how switching off growth hormone action, even in middle age, lengthens life in mice
Institute for Molecular Medicine and Aging, Heritage College of Osteopathic Medicine, Ohio University (papers 2025–2026) · Edison Biotechnology Institute, Ohio University (papers from 2019)
Silvana Duran-Ortiz is first author of an Atlas study (DUR2026) that asked whether blocking growth hormone still helps if you wait until middle age. Mice born without the growth hormone receptor are small, very insulin sensitive and the longest-lived laboratory mice known, but that may be because they never grew normally. Here the team deleted the receptor at 12 months, when the mice were adults. Both sexes still lived significantly longer, without big changes in body size. Males also kept better insulin sensitivity, muscle performance and bone structure as they aged, and the liver showed sex-specific changes in gene activity.
Growth hormone, insulin-like growth factor 1 and mTOR are linked growth signals, so the result fits the wider idea that turning growth signals down in adult life can slow ageing. It is a mouse study; in people, growth hormone receptor defects cause Laron syndrome, which is not the same as switching the receptor off in midlife.
Duran-Ortiz has published with the Ohio University growth hormone group of John Kopchick, Edward List and Darlene Berryman since at least 2019, first listed at the Edison Biotechnology Institute and more recently at the Institute for Molecular Medicine and Aging. The work uses mice in which the growth hormone receptor is removed from the whole body or from single tissues such as fat, liver or muscle, and asks how each affects metabolism, immunity and lifespan; a 2026 paper found that old female mice without the receptor kept younger-looking B and T cell populations. No personal profile page was found, so the job title is not confirmed.
Milestones in the Atlas
A selection, not a full bibliography: only papers that meet the Atlas inclusion criteria.
| Year | Evidence | Study |
|---|---|---|
| 2026 | A | Midlife Growth Hormone Receptor Ablation Extends Healthy Lifespan and Induces Sex-Specific Hepatic Transcriptional Changes at Single-Cell Resolution DUR2026 First author: showed that deleting the growth hormone receptor at 12 months of age still extends lifespan in both sexes of mice, with extra metabolic and muscle benefits in males. |
Co-authors in the Atlas 4
People with a profile here who share at least one study with Silvana Duran-Ortiz.
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- Darlene E. Berryman Showed that growth hormone reshapes fat tissue in a depot-specific way that links body composition to metabolic aging
- Edward O. List Carries out mouse studies, in John Kopchick's group, on how disrupting growth hormone receptor signaling extends mammalian lifespan
- John J. Kopchick Discovered the growth hormone receptor antagonist that became the acromegaly drug pegvisomant (Somavert), and studies how blocking growth hormone signalling extends lifespan in mice
- Yuji Ikeno Pathologist at the Barshop Institute for Longevity and Aging Studies in San Antonio whose examinations of tissues from aged mice help ageing studies tell whether an intervention changes disease, especially cancer, late in life
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