Elixir Pharmaceuticals Inc.

Slow and steady wins the race. The fabled tortoise not only demonstrates the virtue of persistence but may also hold the secrets of longevity. Tortoises can live a hundred years and more, and it seems that they do this by growing and aging at a very slow rate. Lower animals have much to teach us as well. Lenny Guarente, PhD, in a molecular genetics laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology , has found single gene mutations that appear to double the life span of single-celled yeast. Cynthia Kenyon, PhD, a biochemist with the University of California , has confirmed that finding in roundworms, in which a similar gene appears to contribute to long life. The same gene seems to also increase the likelihood that worms will lapse into a dormant state that permits them to live for months without food.

The discovery that a single gene that appears to control aging has been conserved from yeast to a higher animal has generated hope and excitement that a similar gene will...