Cynthia Kenyon

Cynthia Jane Kenyon ( born February 21, 1954 in Chicago) is an American molecular biologist, who is concerned with the genetics of aging ( Gerontogene ).

Kenyon grew up in Athens (Georgia ), where her parents were employed at the University of Georgia, her father as professor of geography. Kenyon studied at the same university Chemistry and Biochemistry ( bachelor's degree 1976). Then doctorate in 1981 they at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Graham C. Walker, where they proved the activation of DNA repair genes in response to DNA damage in E. coli bacteria. As a post - doctoral student, she did research on the genetic control of morphogenesis of the nematode C. elegans ( with which she was already familiar in the laboratory of Robert Horvitz at MIT ) with Sydney Brenner at the MRC Laboratory in Cambridge. She discovered there that ( Hox genes ) are also active in C. elegans morphogenesis in Drosophila in the active genes. Since 1986 she has been Assistant Professor ( from 1994 full professor ) at the University of California, San Francisco ( UCSF ), where she was since 1997 Herbert Boyer Distinguished Professor of Biochemistry and Biophysics and since 2005 American Cancer Society Professor. She runs the Hillblom Center for the Biology of Aging UCSF.

In 1993 she discovered in her lab that a single mutation in the daf -2 gene of C. elegans doubled the lifespan. Soon afterwards discovered, she has a mutation in another gene ( daf- 16m ) this makes that reverses, so that, to other genes, the lifespan of C. elegans. You could also provide evidence that both genes act as control genes and other genes act against each other. After it was discovered that the daf -2 gene a hormone receptor on the cell surface encoded with hormones related to insulin and insulin -like growth factor I in higher organisms, Kenyon also pursued the study of drugs for slowing of the aging process, how it is in 1999 in Boston, the Elixir Pharmaceuticals company founded by Leonard Guarente.

In 2003, she showed that their life expectancy was at six times the normal life expectancy increased ( from 20 days to up to 125 days) by weakening the daf -2 gene and destruction of cells in the reproductive system of C. elegans.

After she discovered that glucose consumption decreased the life expectancy of C. elegans, they followed a diet personally with a low glycemic index

She is a member of the National Academy of Sciences (2003) and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She received the 2000 King Faisal Prize for Medicine. In addition, she received the American Association of Medical Colleges Award for Distinguished Research, 2004 the Discover Prize for Basic Research and the 2005 Ilse & Helmut Wachter Award for Exceptional Scientific Achievement. In 2006 she received the Longevity Prize of the Fondation IPSEN. In 2003, she was president of the Genetics Society of America.