geriatrics
Dr. Thomas Perls |
Harvard scientists identify chromosome location of genes associated with long lifeScientists 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. |
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