Bérénice Benayoun, PhD, is an Associate Professor of Gerontology and Biological Sciences at the USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology. She holds secondary appointments in the Molecular and Computational Biology Department of the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences, the Biochemistry and Molecular Medicine Department in the Keck School of Medicine of USC, and the Department of Pharmacology and Pharmaceutical Sciences at the USC Mann School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences. She joined the USC faculty in 2017.
The Benayoun Laboratory’s current research focuses on epigenome and transcriptome remodeling with aging in vertebrates, how these changes interact with overlooked cues such as biological sex, and the roles that these changes can play in the aging process. Her lab is also one of the pioneering labs in the development of a naturally short-lived vertebrate as a new model for aging research, the African turquoise killifish (Nothobranchius furzeri).
Benayoun received her undergraduate and graduate degrees at the École Normale Supérieure de Paris and Université Paris Diderot-Paris 7 in Paris, France. Her PhD work focused on a transcription factor whose mutations lead to a human syndrome associated to premature menopause. During her post-doctoral training, she identified a new key chromatin signature of cell identity and transcriptional consistency, which is partially remodeled during aging. This work has raised important questions about the stability of cellular identity throughout life.
Benayoun was named a 2020 Pew Biomedical Scholar, received the 2021 Nathan Shock New Investigator Award from the Gerontological Society of America, was named a Rising Star in Reproductive Biology by the Society for Reproduction in 2023, and received the 2024 Vincent Cristofalo Rising Star in Aging Research Award from the American Federation for Aging Research. Since starting as faculty, she has also received the 2019 Rosalind Franklin Young Investigator Award in Mammalian Genetics, a Junior Faculty Award from the American Federation of Aging Research, and a Junior Scholar Award from the Global Consortium for Reproductive Longevity and Equality.
She is also an associate editor of the journal Geroscience and serves on the editorial boards of Translational Medicine of Aging, Journals of Gerontology Series A: Biological Sciences and eLife. She has received a USC Mentoring Award for her mentorship of undergraduate students and the Rising Star Early Career Faculty Award from the Academy for Gerontology in Higher Education.