Jarod Rollins, Ph.D.

The Rollins Laboratory wants to enable people to enjoy longer, healthier lives. A recent revolution in aging research has led to the discovery that the activity of single genes can control the rate at which we age. We are building on this revolution by studying how life-extending interventions like dietary restriction regulate gene expression to help protect our cells and tissues from declining with age. We use the roundworm, C. elegans, as a model organism to study human aging, as roundworms share many of their genes with us and because their short lifespans allow us to rapidly test for interventions that extend longevity.

Gene expression is regulated on multiple levels: by transcription rates of DNA into mRNA copies, by recruitment of mRNA to the ribosome to be translated into proteins and by the degradation rates of the mRNA or protein products. We have previously shown that when C. elegans are treated with dietary restriction, many longevity genes are regulated exclusively on the level of translation. Protein translation is made possible by the ribosome, an intricate molecular machine comprised of multiple proteins. Our current work explores how regulation of longevity genes occurs under dietary restriction by investigating how the protein composition of the ribosome determines which mRNAs are selected for translation and which are not.

Do You Want to Live Longer? Maine Scientists Score $12M to Further Study to Find the Secret
News Center Maine · July 6, 2018

MDI Biological Lab President Kevin Strange Awarded $12M Grant
Mainebiz · July 2, 2018

MDI Biological Laboratory President Kevin Strange Awarded $12 Million NIH Grant
Press Release · June 28, 2018

Living Long, But Living Well
BioTechniques · June 20, 2017

Living Long and Living Well: is it Possible to Do Both?
Regenerative Medicine Network · June 8, 2017

Living Long and Living Well: Is It Possible to Do Both?
Press Release · June 5, 2017

• Rollins, J.A., Howard, A.C., Dobbins, S.K., Washburn, E.H., and Rogers, A.N. (2017). Assessing Health
  Span in Caenorhabditis elegans: Lessons From Short-Lived Mutants. The Journals of Gerontology:
  Series A.
• Rollins, J., and Rogers, A. (2017). Translational Control of Longevity. In Ageing: Lessons from C.
  Elegans, (Springer International Publishing), pp. 285–305.
• Howard, A.C., Rollins, J., Snow, S., Castor, S., and Rogers, A.N. (2016). Reducing translation through
  eIF4G/IFG-1 improves survival under ER stress that depends on heat shock factor HSF-1 in
  Caenorhabditis elegans. Aging Cell 15, 1027–1038.
• Rollins, J., Habte, E., Templer, S., Colby, T., Schmidt, J., and Von Korff, M. (2013). Leaf proteome
  alterations in the context of physiological and morphological responses to drought and heat stress in
  barley (Hordeum vulgare L.). Journal of Experimental Botany 64, 3201–3212.
• Rollins, J.A., Drosse, B., Mulki, M., Grando, S., Baum, M., Singh, M., Ceccarelli, S., and von Korff, M.
  (2013). Variation at the vernalisation genes Vrn-H1 and Vrn-H2 determines growth and yield stability in
  barley (Hordeum vulgare) grown under dryland conditions in Syria. Theoretical and Applied Genetics
  126, 2803–2824.
• Sapra, A.K., Änkö, M.-L., Grishina, I., Lorenz, M., Pabis, M., Poser, I., Rollins, J., Weiland, E.-M., and
  Neugebauer, K.M. (2009). SR protein family members display diverse activities in the formation of
  nascent and mature mRNPs in vivo. Molecular Cell 34, 179–190.
• Stylianou, I.M., Affourtit, J.P., Shockley, K.R., Wilpan, R.Y., Abdi, F.A., Bhardwaj, S., Rollins, J.,
  Churchill, G.A., and Paigen, B. (2008). Applying gene expression, proteomics and single-nucleotide
  polymorphism analysis for complex trait gene identification. Genetics 178, 1795–1805.
• Matteson, P.G., Desai, J., Korstanje, R., Lazar, G., Borsuk, T.E., Rollins, J., Kadambi, S., Joseph, J.,
  Rahman, T., Wink, J., et al. (2008). The orphan G protein-coupled receptor, Gpr161, encodes the
  vacuolated lens locus and controls neurulation and lens development. Proceedings of the National
  Academy of Sciences 105, 2088–2093.
• Korstanje, R., Desai, J., Lazar, G., King, B., Rollins, J., Spurr, M., Joseph, J., Kadambi, S., Li, Y.,
  Cherry, A., et al. (2008). Quantitative trait loci affecting phenotypic variation in the vacuolated lens
  mouse mutant, a multigenic mouse model of neural tube defects. Physiological Genomics 35, 296–304.
• Chen, Y., Rollins, J., Paigen, B., and Wang, X. (2007). Genetic and genomic insights into the molecular
  basis of atherosclerosis. Cell Metabolism 6, 164–179.
• Ishimori, N., Li, R., Walsh, K.A., Korstanje, R., Rollins, J.A., Petkov, P., Pletcher, M.T., Wiltshire, T.,
  Donahue, L.R., Rosen, C.J., et al. (2006). Quantitative trait loci that determine BMD in C57BL/6J and
  129S1/SvImJ inbred mice. Journal of Bone and Mineral Research 21, 105–112.
• Rollins, J., Chen, Y., Paigen, B., and Wang, X. (2006). In search of new targets for plasma high-density
  lipoprotein cholesterol levels: promise of human–mouse comparative genomics. Trends in Cardiovascular
  Medicine 16, 220–234.
• Lyons, M.A., Korstanje, R., Li, R., Sheehan, S.M., Walsh, K.A., Rollins, J.A., Carey, M.C., Paigen, B.,
  and Churchill, G.A. (2005). Single and interacting QTLs for cholesterol gallstones revealed in an
  intercross between mouse strains NZB and SM. Mammalian Genome 16, 152–163.
• Wang, X., Ria, M., Kelmenson, P.M., Eriksson, P., Higgins, D.C., Samnegaard, A., Petros, C., Rollins,
  J., Bennet, A.M., Wiman, B., et al. (2005). Positional identification of TNFSF4, encoding OX40 ligand,
  as a gene that influences atherosclerosis susceptibility. Nature Genetics 37, 365–372.
• Wang, X., Ishimori, N., Korstanje, R., Rollins, J., and Paigen, B. (2005). Identifying novel genes for
  atherosclerosis through mouse-human comparative genetics. The American Journal of Human Genetics
  77, 1–15.
• Korstanje, R., Eriksson, P., Samnegaard, A., Olsson, P.G., Forsman-Semb, K., Sen, S., Churchill, G.A.,
  Rollins, J., Harris, S., Hamsten, A., et al. (2004). Locating Ath8, a locus for murine atherosclerosis
  susceptibility and testing several of its candidate genes in mice and humans. Atherosclerosis 177,
  443–450.

Benjamin Garthoff: Research Assistant I

Benjamin Garthoff is a Maine native and a graduate of the University of Maine at Augusta, where he received his undergraduate degree in general biology. Prior to joining the MDI Biological Laboratory, Garthoff was employed as a certified nursing assistant (CNA) for nearly two years at a nursing home for dementia patients. At the MDI Biological Laboratory, he was the first hire in the Rollins lab and is responsible for general maintenance of the lab, C. elegans lifespan and thermotolerance assays and molecular biology experiments. Garthoff’s long-term goals include exploring potential routes to graduate education and playing a bigger role in experimental design.