The new science of ageing

• 9.00am – 5.00pm on 10 May 2010 – 11 May 2010
• at The Royal Society, London

Organised by Professor Linda Partridge DBE FRS, Professor Janet Thornton CBE FRS and Professor Gillian Bates FRS

Research into ageing has been galvanised by the discovery of single-gene mutations that extend healthy lifespan of laboratory animals and that delay multiple, ageing-related diseases. Evolutionary conservation of these genetic effects allows the use of invertebrates to understand human ageing. This meeting will discuss the scientific challenges and the prospects for a broad-spectrum, preventative medicine for age-related disease.

The speakers and chairs are Professor Andrzej Bartke, Professor Nir Barzilai, Professor Maria A Blasco, Professor Andrew Dillin, Professor William Evans, Professor Richard Faragher (chair), Dr David Gems, Professor Brian Kennedy, Professor Cynthia Kenyon, Professor Stuart Kim, Professor David Kipling (chair), Professor Tom Kirkwood, Professor Janet Lord (chair), Dr Mike Murphy (chair), Professor Thomas Nyström, Professor Thomas Rando, Professor Eline Slagboom, Professor Dominic Withers.

The proceedings of this meeting have now been published in a special issue of Philosophical Transactions B. Audio recordings of the meeting are also available.

The image illustrating this page is Dorothy Hodgkin's Hands (1978) by Henry Moore, executed in charcoal and chalk. Henry Moore, a sculptor and fine draughtsman, had met Dorothy Hodgkin many years before this drawing of her hands was executed. He declined to undertake a conventional portrait of her, but produced instead this exploration of form, which is now in the Royal Society collection. Hodgkin was an x-ray crystallographer; manual dexterity was important for her research. She started to have problems with rheumatoid arthritis when she was only 28. Moore frequently drew or studied hands, and is quoted as saying, "After the head and face, hands are the most expressive part of the human body." Reproduced by permission of The Henry Moore Foundation.