Research in the Biology of Ageing

Abstract

The biology of ageing is finally becoming tractable science. After millennia of dead-ends and extravagant promises, we can now see our way to understanding the mechanisms of ageing. And there is now the genuine prospect of substantially intervening in the process so as to postpone it. These developments have taken place quite rapidly over the last twenty years, and may not be widely known. Here we introduce some of the basic features of this intellectual revolution, along with its more portentous implications for the human predicament. At the centre of this reformation has been evolutionary genetics. Mathematical research has revealed the evolutionary necessity of ageing in most organisms. Experimental research has shown that evolutionary forces readily alter patterns of ageing. The evolutionary research has been allied with genetic and molecular investigations as well, allowing a broad-based attack on the diverse problems of ageing. This attack has now penetrated far enough that the postponement of ageing has become a problem limited by ‘technological’ restraints rather than shortcomings in our general understanding of the process.