PIPages
Labs

Stephanie Tuminello

Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, NY·Public Health & Epidemiology

People can age at different speeds on the inside. Some bodies show more wear than their birth date would predict.

Fields

Public Health & Epidemiology

Genetics

Medicine & Clinical Research

Topics

World Trade Center

WTC responders

biological aging

Grants
1 known grant, through Jun 2027

What they work on

  1. Test whether World Trade Center exposure accelerates biological aging in male responders, comparing blood DNA methylation clocks such as Horvath, GrimAge and DunedinPACE with unexposed men from the general population.
  2. Compare epigenetic age estimates in prostate tumor tissue from WTC responders and unexposed men, to see whether tumors show accelerated aging after WTC exposure.
  3. Examine whether aging-related DNA methylation changes in the blood of cancer-free responders match those in WTC-related prostate tumors, adjusting for important confounders.

More about the research

The rescue and recovery workers who responded to the 2001 World Trade Center (WTC) disaster now have a median age of 60. They also have more age-related illness, including cancer, than expected. This project asks whether WTC exposure has sped up their biological aging.

Why it matters

WTC responders carry an excess burden of cancer and other age-related conditions. Blood biomarkers of accelerated aging could help screen responders for age-related vulnerability. They could also guide aging-focused interventions such as exercise, nutritional supplements, vitamin D, cognitive training or behavioral therapy, improving both prevention and treatment for this group.

Known grants

From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.

Premature biological aging among WTC responders

NIH · Jul 2025 – Jun 2027

Closest labs

Anna Nolan

New York University, NY·Medicine & Clinical Research

Identify firefighters exposed to WTC dust who show chronic over-inflammation, accelerated aging and high circulating autoantibodies, and link these markers to lung function and health measures.

Andres Cardenas

Stanford University, CA·Public Health & Epidemiology

Test whether a 12-month in-home HEPA (high-efficiency particulate air) filter intervention slows epigenetic and proteomic aging clocks in the nasal lining and blood of older former smokers with eosinophilic COPD, using samples from a randomized sham-controlled trial.

Lisa Barcellos

University of California-Berkeley, CA·Public Health & Epidemiology

Develop comprehensive wildfire smoke exposure assignments for all members of a multi-ethnic cohort of about 5,000 East Bay adults sampled during the 2020–2021 wildfire seasons.

The school

Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai: 45 labs on PI Pages, $1.0B a year on research, 62 research doctorates a year.

More about Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai

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