Meeting Abstract
In recent years many methods have been developed by biogerontologists to extend life and improve health in laboratory animals. These methods include modulating food composition and feeding rate, inactivating genes, and dietary supplementation with pharmacological agents. Also, numerous species have been identified that in the natural world appear to have exceptional resistance to the damaging processes of aging. Confusingly given its central role in energetics, ROS generation, and apoptosis, some of life extending treatments and exceptionally long-lived species appear to have reduced mitochondrial activity, others have enhanced mitochondrial activity. This talk will take a comparative approach to these seemingly contradictory findings to try to resolve them into an evolutionarily coherent pattern.
