The Gamberi Research Group

Longevity Studies

While life expectancy has improved in the past few decades, the rate of metabolic disease has also increased, reducing quality of life and burdening the health-care system. Thus, efforts are being renewed towards finding ways to extend the healthy life span. This is possible, because only 30% of longevity was found to be defined genetically, with the remaining 70% being influenced by environmental conditions, including nutrition and life style. In our laboratory, whole-animal compound assays in the fly are used to test the biological activity of a family of compounds and define their effects on promoting and extending healthy life-span.