The Bodnar Lab
Unlocking the secrets of healthy aging by studying the earth’s longest-living animals
The oceans are home to many of the earth’s longest-living animals with several marine vertebrates and invertebrates documented to live for centuries without showing signs of aging. The Bodnar lab, led by Andrea Bodnar, Ph.D., leverages the remarkable biology of these long-lived marine species to uncover mechanisms that promote healthy aging and natural disease resistance. Sea urchins are a particularly powerful model for this work. Some species of sea urchins can live to extraordinary old ages — more than 100 years — with life-long growth and reproduction, no evidence of age-related decline, and no reported cases of cancer. Because sea urchins share a close genetic relationship with humans, investigating the molecular and cellular pathways that maintain tissue function and genome stability in these animals promises to uncover novel strategies for the prevention or treatment of human age-related degenerative diseases and cancer.
Research Focus
Mechanisms of Exceptional Longevity and Healthy Aging
Sea urchins represent a unique model system for understanding molecular, cellular, and systemic mechanisms underlying longevity and healthy aging. There are about 1,000 extant sea urchin species that exhibit a wide range of lifespans, including species with exceptional longevity. The red sea urchin (Mesocentrotus franciscanus) is one of the earth’s longest living animals, reported to live more than 100 years with indeterminate growth, life-long reproduction, and negligible senescence. In contrast, other sea urchin species are reported to live for only a few years, providing an ideal platform for comparative studies.
Comparative genomics between long- and short-lived sea urchin species revealed expanded gene families in long-lived species that play a role in innate immunity, sensory nervous system, and genome stability. Our comparative transcriptomic studies revealed a remarkable pattern of age-related gene expression in the central nervous system of the long-lived red sea urchin including up-regulation of many genes involved in synaptogenesis, axonogenesis, neuroprotection, and neurotransmitter function, suggesting preservation of the nervous system with age. Ongoing work is investigating the mechanisms by which these animals maintain neurons and synaptic connections with age, and understanding the role of the immune system in maintaining tissue homeostasis and cancer prevention.
Featured Projects:
Genomic signatures of exceptional longevity and negligible aging in the long-lived red sea urchin
Lifespan varies enormously between different sea urchin species from just a few years to more than a century. We generated a chromosome-level genome assembly for the long-lived red sea urchin and conducted comparisons with the genomes of short-lived species. The results revealed complex molecular signatures for long-term maintenance of tissue homeostasis, disease resistance, and negligible aging. This work provides the foundation for further comparative and functional studies to elucidate mechanisms underlying healthy longevity.
Unique age-related transcriptional signature in the nervous system of the long-lived red sea urchin Mesocentrotus franciscanus
The red sea urchin is one of the earth’s longest-living animals, living for more than 100 years without showing signs of aging and no reported cases of cancer. Transcriptomic analysis revealed an extraordinary age-related gene expression profile in the central nervous system that suggests preservation of neurons and their synaptic connections with age in these long-lived animals.
Investigating Mechanisms of Natural Cancer Resistance
Sea urchins present a remarkable biological paradox: despite extreme longevity, high regenerative capacity, and the absence of an adaptive immune system, cancer has never been observed in these animals. This exceptional resistance makes sea urchins a powerful and unexplored model for understanding natural cancer protection mechanisms. By studying the cell intrinsic and extrinsic mechanisms that protect sea urchins from neoplastic disease, we aim to uncover fundamental strategies of cancer prevention and translate these findings to novel preventative or therapeutic approaches for human cancer.
Long-lived sea urchin species possess expanded genomic repertoires of genes that maintain genomic integrity, including multiple copies of key DNA repair and tumor suppressor genes. We are investigating how these genes contribute to the remarkable cancer resistance of sea urchins and developing an integrated strategy to uncover novel tumor-suppressor mechanisms.
We are also investigating the role of the innate immune system in protecting sea urchins from cancer. Our goal is to identify novel interactions between the DNA damage response and the innate immune system that enhance the immune system’s ability to recognize and remove damaged cells as a cancer prevention mechanism. These insights will advance our understanding of antitumor immunity and may inform novel therapeutic strategies that enhance the innate immune system’s capacity to combat cancer.
Featured Projects:
UVB-Induced Genotoxic Stress Activates the DNA Damage Response and Innate Immune Pathways in Sea Urchin Coelomocytes
Interactions between the DNA damage response (DDR) and the innate immune system are essential to maintain genomic fitness and prevent oncogenesis. Using the long-lived, cancer resistant purple sea urchin, Strongylocentrotus purpuratus, we investigated immune cell-intrinsic responses to genotoxic stress. Combining bulk and single-cell RNA sequencing, we identified concurrent induction of DDR and innate immune pathways, providing a framework for understanding how damage recognition systems shape deuterostome defenses to promote genomic stability and cancer resistance.
Developing New Cell Culture Tools to Promote Functional Genomic Studies
For more than a century, sea urchins have served as important research models that have advanced our understanding of fundamental biological processes including cell cycle regulation and gene regulatory networks of early development. However, their full potential as research models has yet to be realized due to the limited tools available to test gene function. As part of a large collaborative effort within the echinoderm research community, our goal is to create the next generation of molecular and cell culture tools to enable new research questions across a broad range of disciplines. To this end, our lab has established the first sea urchin cell lines, generating embryonic stem cell lines with indefinite self-renewal capacity and ability to differentiate into cell types from all three germ layers. The cultured cells are amendable to lentiviral transduction, providing a scalable in vitro platform for testing gene function. These tools will transform the ability to use sea urchins as research models and promises to add a new era of discovery to their remarkable history, transitioning these organisms into a mainstream model of discovery and translation.
Featured Projects:
Genetically tractable embryonic cell lines from sea urchins
In vitro cell lines are among the most powerful and broadly used tools in biomedical research, but their power has only been realized for a few – predominantly mammalian – species. We recently established the first embryonic stem cell lines from sea urchins. These embryonic cells have indefinite self-renewal capacity and the ability to generate differentiated cell types representing all three germ layers, recapitulating aspects of development in vitro. Working with collaborators at Duke University, we showed that the cultured cells are amenable to lentiviral transduction, providing a scalable platform for mechanistic studies of gene function.
Meet the Team
Andrea Bodnar, Ph.D.
Andrea is a scientist whose research interests lie at the intersection of marine biology and...
Reanna McAtee
After graduating from Ipswich High School, Reanna attended Gloucester Biotechnology Academy, where she found a…
Riss Kell, Ph.D.
Riss’ love of science and curiosity for the ocean was fostered through growing up in…
Nicole Capozzi
Nicole comes to GMGI after finishing a bachelor’s degree at Smith College. She explored the…
Lab Alumni
Kate Castellano, Ph.D.: Postdoctoral Scientist at GMGI, went to the Institute for Systems Genomics, University of Connecticut as Assistant Research Professor
Amanda Baryshyan, Ph.D.: Research Scientist at GMGI, went to Mori, Inc. as Vice President of Engineering
Margaret Weber, MS: Research Intern at GMGI, went to University College Dublin as Ph.D. student
Featured Collaborators
Gary Wessel, Ph.D., Brown University
Greg Wray, Ph.D., Duke University
Jennifer Morgan, Ph.D., Marine Biological Laboratory
Katherine Buckley, Ph.D., Auburn University
Marc Vidal, Ph.D., Dana Farber Cancer Institute
Paul Jensen, Ph.D., Scripps Institution of Oceanography
Jeffery Silva, Ph.D., Principal Scientist at Cell Signaling Technology
Featured Publications
See Dr. Bodnar’s full list of publications here.
Bodnar, A.G., Roger, L.M. and Traylor-Knowles N. (2026) A framework for overcoming challenges in marine invertebrate cell culture for research and conservation. Frontiers in Marine Science 13:1866991. https://doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2026.1866991
Kell, R.M., Weber, M.K., Escalante, R.Y., Silva, J.C., and Bodnar, A.G. (2026) UVB-induced genotoxic stress activates the DNA damage response and innate immune pathways in sea urchin coelomocytes. Front. Immunol. 17:1787989. doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2026.1787989
Castellano, K.R., Manner, C.J., Kell, R.M., McAtee, R.M., Capozzi, N.M., Wray, G.A. and Bodnar, A.G. (2025) Genetically tractable embryonic cell lines from sea urchins Lytechinus variegatus and Strongylocentrotus purpuratus. Communications Biology 8, 1457. https://doi.org/10.1038/s42003-025-08890-3
Polinski, J.M., Castellano, K.R., Buckley, K.M, and Bodnar, A.G. (2024) Genomic signatures of exceptional longevity and negligible aging in the long-lived red sea urchin. Cell Reports 43(4) 114021. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.celrep.2024.114021
Polinski, J.M., Zimin, A.V., Clark, K.F., Kohn, A.B., Sadowski, N., Timp, W., Ptitsyn, A., Khanna, P., Romanova, D.Y., Williams, P., Greenwood, S.J., Moroz, L.L., Walt, D.R. and Bodnar, A.G. (2021) The American lobster genome reveals insights on longevity, neural, and immune adaptations. Science Advances Vol. 7, no. 26, eabe8290 https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/7/26/eabe8290
Polinski, J.M., Kron N., Smith, D.R. and Bodnar, A.G. (2020) Unique age-related transcriptional signature in the nervous system of the long-lived red sea urchin Mesocentrotus franciscanus. Scientific Reports 10, 9182. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-66052-3
Featured Collaborators
Massachusetts Department of Agricultural Resources
Massachusetts Life Sciences Center
Massachusetts Technology Collaborative
National Science Foundation
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