LONGEVITY STUDIES

While life expectancy has improved in the past few decades, the rate of metabolic disease has also increased, reducing quality of life and burdening the health-care system. Thus, efforts are being renewed towards finding ways to extend the healthy life span. This is possible, because only 30% of longevity was found to be defined genetically, with the remaining 70% being influenced by environmental conditions, including nutrition and life style. In our laboratory, whole-animal compound assays in the fly are used to test the biological activity of a family of compounds and define their effects on promoting and extending healthy life-span. Collaboration with BH BioScience.