From Ouroboros, just returned from the 2006 CSHL Meeting on Molecular Genetics of Aging: "The meeting itself was at the same time exciting and grueling: There's so much happening in the field right now; one has the feeling of drinking from a firehose ... With a few days' remove from the experience, however, I keep returning to one theme: This field has exploded in the last dozen years. Without in any way meaning to denigrate the progress in study of aging prior the early 90's, the specific field in question at this conference (molecular genetics of aging) barely existed then. ... Starting in 1993, however, that began to change. ... I want to single out two papers that mark [for me] the beginning of the era of a true molecular genetics of aging. Both have had tremendous impact on the field over the ten years since - at the CSHL meeting, more than half of the talks were in some way based on the founding observations in these two papers."

Link: http://ouroboros.wordpress.com/2006/10/16/molecular-genetics-of-aging-cshl-2006-perspectives-on-a-decade/