Siniša Hrvatin

My lab studies how animals adapt to extreme environments and survive in states of stasis, like hibernation. We're interested in understanding the mechanisms that allow them to enter states of suspended animation, and then we can apply some of those mechanisms to advance human medicine. 

A longstanding question in the field of hibernation is why hibernators live considerably longer than closely related animals that don't hibernate. We wanted to study this phenomenon by figuring out how to induce a hibernation-like state in animals that do not normally hibernate. We did this by stimulating a specific population of neurons in the brains of mice.

Now we have these mice that can enter hibernation-like states for days or weeks. We wanted to know whether their rates of aging slowed. Indeed, we noticed that these mice had fewer markers of aging in their blood, and overall they were less frail. These effects were dependent on changes in temperature. While humans don't hibernate, perhaps we can recapitulate some of these mechanisms in order to slow down our own aging.