Cynthia J. Kenyon

Cynthia J. Kenyon made the groundbreaking discovery that aging is a regulated, hormone controlled process – which can therefore be manipulated. She has shown in the nematode C. elegans that genes encoding components of an insulin/IGF-1 endocrine signaling system govern the transcriptional control of antioxidant, chaperone, metabolic and anti-bacterial genes. By manipulating this system, C. Kenyon succeeded to extend the lifespan of C. elegans by six fold. Biology of Aging thus may arrive at a turning point, and the old dream of a long life in health may come closer to the realm of possibility. Although these findings are as yet not applicable to humans, their validity has been shown by others in flies and mammals.


Curriculum vitae

Name: Cynthia J. Kenyon
Adress: Dept. Biochemistry and Biophysics, University of California, San Francisco

BS Univ. of Georgia, 1976
Training in the laboratory of Mark Ptashne, Harvard University (1980)
PhD (Biology), Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1981)
Postdoctoral fellow at MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge, England
(Sydney Brenner), 1982-86
Dept. Biochemistry and Biophysics, UCSF (1986 – present; full professor since 1994)
Director of the UCSF Hillblom Center for the Biology of Aging (2002-dzt)

Numerous Guest lectures, honours and honorary memberships to scientific societies
Prizes:
King Faisal International Prize for Medicine, 2000
Life Extension Prize, 2002
Discover Prize for Basic Research, 2004
Award for Distinguished Research in Biomedical Sciences, 2004


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