General “Aging” research article:
There may never have been a better time to grow old. From telomeres to tibias, people are ageing better than ever — and can even slow the process. With the global population over 60 years of age set to more than double by 2050, the race is on to crack the ageing code and develop new therapies that target age-related diseases, to increase the amount of time people are optimally healthy.
Some of the most influential insights into how we age, and how ageing links to disease, have emerged in the San Francisco Bay Area. In 1993, researchers in Cynthia Kenyon’s lab at the University of California–San Francisco (UCSF) discovered that a single mutation in the daf-2 gene could dramatically extend the lifespan of the roundworm Caenorhabditis elegans. This landmark finding laid the foundation for uncovering the genetic mechanisms that influence ageing. UCSF molecular biologist, Elizabeth Blackburn, won the 2009 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for her discovery of telomeres — the protective caps at chromosome ends — reshaping our understanding of cellular ageing and cancer.
Since then, Blackburn, who made the discovery with Jack Szostak and Carol Greider, has remained a leader in telomere and telomerase research. But telomeres, she says, are only one of many facets of the field.
“Practically everything in biology is related to ageing in one way or another," Blackburn says. “These different processes all interact.”