Friday, July 20, 2007
WNYC’s Radiolab series tackles just five topics each season. Most recently, in an exploration of the science of aging and the search for immortality in an episode titled “Mortality,” hosts Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich featured interviews with two UCSF researchers.
The show’s first segment, “Life’s Limit,” focuses on Leonard Hayflick, PhD, adjunct professor of anatomy at UCSF, who, in 1961, discovered that human cells in a culture divide a finite amount of times before reaching a maximum limit, henceforth called the Hayflick limit. In the segment, Hayflick discusses how the introduction of telomerase can extend the life of cells beyond the Hayflick limit, but at a cost.
In “Fountains of Youth,” the second segment of the program, Krulwich visits the UCSF lab of Cynthia Kenyon, PhD, where Kenyon describes a struggle—between what she dubs the “Grim Reaper” and “Fountain of Youth” genes—that influences the lifespan of the roundworm C. elegans. By tinkering with these genes, Kenyon and her team have been able to more than double the worm’s lifespan. What are the implications, if any, for halting the aging process in humans?
Related links:
Mortality
Radiolab, WNYC-FM (NPR), June 15, 2007
Is Aging a Disease? A Conversation with Cynthia Kenyon
UCSF Science Café, January 10, 2007
Read it | Hear it
Live Long and Prosper: A Conversation About Aging with Cynthia Kenyon
UCSF Science Café, January 4, 2007
Discover: Cynthia Kenyon and Anti-Aging Genes
UCSF Today, May 29, 2007
Charlie Rose and Cynthia Kenyon Explore the Science of Living Longer
UCSF Today, April 2, 2007
Aging: Will Research into “Longevity Genes” Help Us Live Longer and Healthier Lives?
UCSF Today, January 12, 2007
Can Kenyon’s Roundworms Lead Us to the Fountain of Youth?
UCSF Today, July 7, 2006
Cynthia Kenyon: Probing the Prospects of Perpetual Youth
UCSF Magazine, May 2003
Wormworld (Kenyon Lab)
