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AREAS OF SPECIALTY:

  • Longevity genes in model organisms

  • Insulin signaling pathway

  • Gerotherapuetics

Cynthia Kenyon, Ph.D.

Vice President, Aging Research, Calico life sciences

In 1993, Kenyon’s pioneering discovery that a single-gene mutation could double the lifespan of healthy, fertile C. elegans roundworms sparked an intensive study of the molecular biology of aging. Kenyon finds that rate of aging is subject to genetic control: Animals (and likely people) contain regulatory proteins that affect aging by coordinating diverse collections of downstream genes that together protect and repair the cells and tissues. Kenyon’s findings have led to the realization that a universal hormone-signaling pathway influences the rate of aging in many species, including humans. She has identified many longevity genes and pathways, and her lab was the first to discover that neurons, and also the germ cells, can control the lifespan of the whole animal.

Kenyon graduated valedictorian in chemistry from the University of Georgia in 1976. She received her Ph.D. from MIT in 1981 and was a postdoctoral fellow with Nobel laureate Sydney Brenner in Cambridge, England. In 1986 she joined the faculty of the University of California, San Francisco, where she became the Herb Boyer Distinguished Professor and an American Cancer Society Professor, before joining Calico in 2014.

Awards and Honors

  • Kenyon is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Medicine and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and she is a former president of the Genetics Society of America. She has received numerous scientific honors and awards.

critical publications

  • Chisnell P, Parenteau TR, Tank E, Ashrafi K, Kenyon C. The mTOR Target S6 Kinase Arrests Development in Caenorhabditis elegans When the Heat-Shock Transcription Factor Is Impaired. Genetics. 2018 11; 210(3):999-1009. PMID: 30228197.

  • Podshivalova K, Kerr RA, Kenyon C. How a Mutation that Slows Aging Can Also Disproportionately Extend End-of-Life Decrepitude. Cell Rep. 2017 04 18; 19(3):441-450. PMID: 28423308.

  • Narayan V, Ly T, Pourkarimi E, Murillo AB, Gartner A, Lamond AI, Kenyon C. Deep Proteome Analysis Identifies Age-Related Processes in C. elegans. Cell Syst. 2016 08; 3(2):144-159. PMID: 27453442.

  • Roux AE, Langhans K, Huynh W, Kenyon C. Reversible Age-Related Phenotypes Induced during Larval Quiescence in C. elegans. Cell Metab. 2016 Jun 14; 23(6):1113-1126. PMID: 27304510.

  • Wei Y, Kenyon C. Roles for ROS and hydrogen sulfide in the longevity response to germline loss in Caenorhabditis elegans. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2016 May 17; 113(20):E2832-41. PMID: 27140632; PMCID: PMC4878494.

  • Bensaddek D, Narayan V, Nicolas A, Murillo AB, Gartner A, Kenyon CJ, Lamond AI. Micro-proteomics with iterative data analysis: Proteome analysis in C. elegans at the single worm level. Proteomics. 2016 Feb; 16(3):381-92. PMID: 26552604.