Behind the Scenes of Aging Research

This article looks at an aging research lab typical of the community presently working to better understand aging and metabolism: "Aging is not just a simple fact of life. Scientists see life span as a complex process in which genetics and environmental stresses interact involving the whole animal. Regulating the genes - switching them on or off - that control aging may increase healthy, active life spans dramatically. Why is it, ask scientists, that animals have dramatic differences in life spans? Size does not explain the difference. A canary lives only a few years while a bat can live as many as 50 years, yet both are similar in size. And even animals vastly different in size have similar factors and pathways that control life span. ... Dong and his colleagues focused on the master factor DAF-16, which some scientists call the 'Fountain of Youth' gene. They identified a co-factor that, when deactivated, can prolong C. elegan's life span by 40 percent and improve the worm's resistance to damage to its DNA and proteins. So far, researchers have identified several hundred genes in C. elegans that may affect life span. ... Dong's laboratory is collecting the research results, identifying individual genes and grouping them by their link to environmental stresses."

Link: http://www.clemson.edu/newsroom/articles/2008/october/Life_span_research.php5

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