Fruit flies: The key to a longer life?

Thanks to improvements in our understanding of health, we can all expect to live well into old age. While long life has benefits, it also means we are likely to suffer from the diseases of ageing. What if we could understand the biology of ageing, could we develop treatments that address its causes and in so doing, treat all of the diseases of ageing?

Remarkably, recent research has found genetic and dietary treatments that extend healthy lifespan in lab animals. What’s more, the same treatments appear to work in very different organisms from worms to mice, indicating that these findings could be relevant to humans. Dr Matthew Piper will give an overview of the current state of knowledge of ageing research, with a focus on his field of expertise: flies and their food.

Matthew graduated with a PhD in Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics from the University of New South Wales, Sydney. He then moved to Delft, in the Netherlands, to work in an industrial fermentation lab where they developed yeast to make high value scents and flavour compounds, such as the rose scent in perfumes. In 2003, he moved to UCL in the UK to work on ageing, using the fruitfly as a model organism. In 2010 he started my own lab with funding from the Royal Society and the BBSRC. My interest lies in how we can use nutrition to improve lifelong health in to old age.