Cynthia Kenyon
Cynthia Kenyon
Cynthia Jane Kenyonis an American molecular biologist and biogerontologist known for her genetic dissection of aging in a widely used model organism, the roundworm Caenorhabditis elegans...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionScientist
CountryUnited States of America
numbers risk age
Age is the single largest risk factor for an enormous number of diseases. So if you can essentially postpone aging, then you can have beneficial effects on a whole wide range of disease.
normal mutation worms
In the early '90s, we discovered mutations that could double the normal life span of worms.
human imagining
It's like, say, if you were a dog. You notice that you're getting old, and you look at your human and you think, 'Why isn't this human getting old?'... But now we're the human looking out and imagining a different human.
fewer good healthy life living longer might sick turn
Just living longer and being sick is the worst. But the idea that you could have fewer diseases, and just have a healthy life and then turn out the lights, that's a good vision to have. And I think what we know about some of these pathways suggests that might be possible.
genes life organisms perhaps regulate run speeds universal
Perhaps genes did regulate the aging process. Perhaps different organisms had different life spans because a universal regulatory 'clock' was set to run at different speeds in different species.
convert days developing food lots produces resources single soon strategies three time worm worms
There are lots of different strategies that an animal can use to survive. What a worm does is try to convert food into worms as soon as possible. In three days a single worm produces 300 progeny. So why put your resources into developing if you can make a brand-new worm in no time at all?
eventually people small trying youthful
We are trying to find drugs, small molecules, that people could take to make them disease-resistant, more youthful and healthy. Eventually we will find them.
seeker truth
I was a little truth seeker as a child. I wanted more than anything to understand myself and also other people.