Laura Niedernhofer, MD, PhD, is a mouse geneticist whose lab studies the fundamental mechanisms that drive aging, which is the greatest risk factor for most chronic diseases including neurodegeneration. She joined the faculty at the University of Minnesota in 2018 to lead a new Medical Discovery Team on the Biology of Aging. Prior to that she was at the Scripps Research Institute where she contributed to the development of a new class of drugs called senolytics, which selectively kill senescent cells, a key driver of aging and age-related diseases.

Dr. Niedernhofer trained at Duke University, Vanderbilt and the Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam, NL. Her expertise is in DNA damage and repair, and she is known for establishing the role of genotoxic stress in driving aging.