http://harvardscience.harvard.edu/topic/4157 Stories within a topic (RSS) en http://harvardscience.harvard.edu/medicine-health/articles/harvard-scientists-identify-chromosome-location-genes-associated-long-life <!--paging_filter--><p>Scientists have long thought of aging as a complex process affected by perhaps a thousand genes. So a recent discovery by Harvard scientists that a gene or genes located on a region of human Chromosome 4 may help people to live to age 100 was something of a surprise. "This is the first study to use humans to try to find genes that play a role in life span," said Assistant Professor of Medicine Thomas Perls, one of the study's co-authors and a geriatrician at Beth Israel Deaconess and director of the New England Centenarian Study. "Many investigators thought longevity was far more complex a trait that wouldn't be influenced by just a few genes." "We have known that only a few genes influence longevity in lower organisms and that now appears to be true in humans," said Louis M.</p> <p><a href="http://harvardscience.harvard.edu/medicine-health/articles/harvard-scientists-identify-chromosome-location-genes-associated-long-life">read more</a></p> Mon, 26 Mar 2007 05:14:27 -0400 70652986 3007 at http://harvardscience.harvard.edu