Life lessons from an old worm
Scientists are peeling back the ancient veneer of our understanding of aging, replacing the idea that creatures merely “wear out” over time with a rising knowledge of the genetic roots of the process and how it varies between species. Their findings raise the prospect that aging eventually might be at least partly controlled. Cynthia Kenyon, a professor at the University of California, San Francisco, and director of the Hillblom Center for the Biology of Aging, outlined recent advances in her decades-long career studying aging and discussed recent progress in the field before an audience Thursday at Harvard’s Northwest Laboratory Building. Kenyon delivered the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology’s (MCB) Paul Doty Lecture, named after the biochemist who died in 2011 at age 91. Matthew Meselson, Thomas Dudley Cabot Professor of the Natural Sciences, introduced the session, talking briefly about Doty, who spent 42 years on the Harvard faculty and became prominent...