Understanding aging, mastering longevity

"Any living organism is a far more complicated machine than anything that's man made, but that doesn't change the fact that the concept is still the same. Any machine's function is determined by its structure, and therefore, if you can restore the structure, then you're also going to restore the function."

– Aubrey de Grey, Chief Science Officer, SENS Research Foundation

We are now entering a new phase where we can be in the driving seat of our genetic code. So, how does understanding genetics and epigenetics help us understand and influence the aging process?

I had the pleasure of meeting Professor Thomas Kirkwood at Newcastle University recently. He framed the question of why we age in terms of an organism's available resources. Known as the "Disposable Soma Hypothesis," it is based on the notion that there are always limited resources available to species: energy...