Abstract

Age is a major contributing factor to most common, chronic diseases. Despite this observation, we still know surprisingly little about the underlying biology that brings about these associations. Ageing also does not affect us all equally. Some people are able to live long and productive lives, whilst others succumb to age-related diseases such as cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes and dementia relatively early in life. One consistent observation is that people who live a long time spend a relatively smaller proportion of their life with diseases, so understanding the factors that contribute to a long lifespan will help us to understand’ healthspan’ as well as ‘lifespan’. In this lecture, I will describe the role of our genes in determining how long we live and how well we age, and describe some of the recent work that is happening in my laboratory that may help us understand how these genes influence lifespan and healthspan.