Berenice Benayoun
University of Southern California, CA·Genetics
Males and females age differently, yet most biomedical research has studied only males. These projects ask how biological sex shapes aging and health.
- Fields
Genetics
Biology
Microbiology & Immunology
- Topics
aging
sex differences
sex dimorphism
- Grants
- 3 known grants, through May 2031
What they work on
- Characterize overall aging trajectories, including frailty, in two new mouse models of menopause: mid-life exposure to VCD, a chemical that depletes ovarian follicles, and Foxl2 haploinsufficiency (one working copy of an ovary-maintaining gene).
- Determine whether menopause-like loss of ovarian function in VCD-treated and Foxl2-haploinsufficient mice accelerates brain aging and age-related cognitive decline.
- Evaluate how menopause-like hormonal states change microglia, the brain's resident immune cells, whose aging phenotypes differ between males and females.
- Separate the effects of sex hormones from sex chromosomes on neutrophils (first-responder white blood cells), using adult Foxl2-iKO mice in which somatic sex is reprogrammed in adulthood.
- Determine how gonadal hormones versus sex chromosomes control transposon (jumping gene) activity in healthy cells, and identify new regulators using functional genomics, omics and machine learning.
- Test how control of transposon activity in key tissues affects lifelong health in males and females, using the short-lived African turquoise killifish as a model.
More about the research
They separate the effects of sex hormones, such as estrogen and androgens, from those of sex chromosomes (XX versus XY). The work spans brain aging after menopause, immune cells and the 'jumping genes' scattered through the genome, using mice and a short-lived fish.
Why it matters
Women spend much of later life after menopause and carry higher risks of frailty and neurodegeneration. Better menopause models could help researchers develop ways to reduce these effects and tailor anti-aging treatments by sex. Knowing how sex hormones tune neutrophils could inform efforts to correct immune dysfunction across the sexes. Understanding transposon control could suggest ways to prevent its breakdown in diseases such as cancer and neurodegeneration.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Modeling the causal impact of menopause on female brain aging trajectories in mice
NIH · Jun 2026 – May 2031
Understanding the regulation and impact of transposable elements in Vertebrate health and disease
NIH · Aug 2021 – Jun 2027
Deciphering hormonal regulation of neutrophil biology
NIH · Sep 2022 – May 2027
Closest labs
Amanda Kallen
University of Vermont, VT·Genetics
Chart the ovarian aging process in genetically diverse Collaborative Cross mouse strains with low Anti-Müllerian hormone and reduced fertility by measuring ovarian reserve, hormones, follicle development and molecular aging markers.
Josephina Van Wolfswinkel
Yale University, CT·Biology
Determine how source transcripts for piRNAs, small RNAs that silence jumping genes, are generated and recognized in planarian neoblast stem cells, and how the response is kept away from important genes.
Bradley Gelfand
University of Virginia, VA·Physiology
Determine how sex chromosome complement and gonadal hormones each contribute to sex differences in ADCAI, the process by which IgG1 antibodies inhibit blood-vessel growth.
The school
University of Southern California: 47 labs on PI Pages, $1.3B a year on research, 882 research doctorates a year.
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