The molecular basis of aging

摘要: • Almost twenty years ago, biogerontology, the modern science of the process of aging, was born, when researchers discovered that the lifespan of the soil-dwelling nematode Caenorhabditis elegans is subject to genetic control. Later on, further studies revealed that the mechanisms governing aging in the smallest organisms have been evolutionarily conserved and that they may also operate in human beings. Since then, biogerontology has boomed, learning from–and contributing to–such diverse fields such as cell signalling, metabolism, endocrinology and a wide range of human diseases including cancer.Many of these fields were found to be not as separated as believed at first sight. Newly discovered connections show that seemingly unrelated observations are in fact related to each other. While this process of crosslinking is far from complete, several overlapping themes have clearly emerged. At the 95th …