Cynthia Kenyon Quotes

It's possible that we could change a human gene and double our life span. I don't know if that's true, but we can't rule that out.

I'm the chief science officer of a foundation that works on the application of regenerative medicine to the problem of aging.

Anti-aging is an extremely under-explored field.

A scenario is, everyone takes gene therapy - not just curing rare diseases like cystic fibrosis, but diseases that everyone has, like aging.

In the early '90s, we discovered mutations that could double the normal life span of worms.

I really think people should live to be 100 years old pretty much disease-free. I think that's our genetic potential.

People think if you have deciphered the genome of humans that you can change everything. But you cannot change everything, because you do not know what the genes mean, and you have no methods for changing them, and you can't do experiments with humans like you can with animals.

Realizing the ways in which we humans may have been inadvertently changing our genes for millennia provides a way for us to begin to think about the inevitable genetic revolution in medicine that is going to allow us to advertently change our genes over centuries and even decades.

In the past, when we've tried gene therapy, we haven't had tools that have allowed targeted gene correction.

In the future, I can imagine that we will genetically modify ourselves using the genes that have doubled our life span since we were chimpanzees.

Cloning will enable mankind to reach eternal life.

The fundamental issue is not whether there will be cloned cells but whether individuals will be allowed to change their bodies at the genetic level…. For individuals with genetic conditions they would like to change, genetic medicine is the hope for a better life.

Telomerase Activation is the single most promising approach to reversing the effects of aging.

I'd like to grow very old as slowly as possible.

As we all saw in grade school, once you learn how to read a book, somebody is going to want to write one - that's how authors are made. Once we know how to read our own genetic code, someone is going to want to rewrite that 'text,' tinker with traits - play God, some would say.

We are sometimes asked what the result would be if we put four +'s in one gene. To answer this my colleagues have recently put together not merely four but six +'s.

With genetic engineering, we will be able to increase the complexity of our DNA, and improve the human race. But it will be a slow process, because one will have to wait about 18 years to see the effect of changes to the genetic code.

The genomics revolution, proteomics, metabolomics, all of these 'omics' that sound so terrific on grants and on business plans. What we're doing is we are seizing control of our evolutionary future. I mean we're essentially using technology to just jam evolution into fast-forward.

With the advent of genetic engineering the time required for the evolution of new species may literally collapse.

Reducing caloric intake is the only proven method of extending life. If caloric intake is reduced to 20 percent below maintenance, you can extend your lifespan considerably.

Lifespan extension has never really been a goal of aging science, nor should it.

I suspect any worries about genetic engineering may be unnecessary. Genetic mutations have always happened naturally, anyway.

The problem with existing biology is you change only one or two genes at a time.

We're moving from reading the genetic code to writing it.

Maybe one day we will be able to take a pill that keeps us young and healthy much longer. I believe in my heart that this will happen.