Over 20 years ago, together with seven illustrious colleagues, the author proposed that efforts to postpone the decline and debilitation of aging might most promisingly be pursued by tackling the various lifelong processes of accumulation of damage through a panel of interventions, rather than seeking a magic bullet that would retard them all. A decade later, this approach was embraced in a paper that rapidly became, and is still, by far the most highly cited publication in the biology of aging this century. Here I survey the progress that the field has made in relation to this philosophy and the challenges that remain.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
StamblerI.A History of Life-Extensionism in the Twentieth Century. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform: Scotts Valley, California, USA; 2014; pp. 540. ISBN 1500818577.
2.
HarmanD. Aging: A theory based on free radical and radiation chemistry. J Gerontol, 1956; 11(3):298–300.
3.
HayflickL. The limited in vitro lifetime of human diploid cell strains. Exp Cell Res, 1965; 37:614–636.
4.
SzilardL. On the nature of the ageing process. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A, 1959; 45:35–45.
5.
FriedmanDB, JohnsonTE. A mutation in the age-1 gene in Caenorhabditis elegans lengthens life and reduces hermaphrodite fertility. Genetics, 1988; 118(1):75–86.
6.
KenyonC, ChangJ, GenschE, et al.A C. elegans mutant that lives twice as long as wild type. Nature, 1993; 366(6454):461–464.
7.
de GreyADNJ. The unfortunate influence of the weather on the rate of ageing: Why human caloric restriction or its emulation may only extend life expectancy by 2–3 years. Gerontology, 2005; 51(2):73–82.
8.
de GreyADNJ, AmesBN, AndersenJK, et al.Time to talk SENS: Critiquing the immutability of human aging. Ann N Y Acad Sci, 2002; 959:452–462.
9.
López-OtínC, BlascoMA, PartridgeL, et al.The hallmarks of aging. Cell, 2013; 153(6):1194–1217.
10.
KennedyBK, BergerSL, BrunetA, et al.Geroscience: Linking aging to chronic disease. Cell, 2014; 159(4):709–713.
11.
Schmauck-MedinaT, MolièreA, LautrupS, et al.New hallmarks of ageing: A 2022 Copenhagen ageing meeting summary. Aging (Albany NY), 2022; 14(16):6829–6839.
12.
López-OtínC, BlascoMA, PartridgeL, et al.Hallmarks of aging: An expanding universe. Cell, 2023; 186(2):243–278.
13.
de GreyADNJ, LewisC. Robust Mouse Rejuvenation, Study 1. Available from: https://www.levf.org/projects/robust-mouse-rejuvenation-study-1 [Last accessed: December10, 2023].
