A presentation by Rob Williams, PhD, UT-ORNL Governor's Chair.

What do we know about the genetics of aging in mice or in humans? Surprisingly little because it is very hard to disentangle fundamental processes that control rates of aging from the innumerable genetic contributors to specific age-related diseases. Over the last five years our team at UTHSC, and many collaborators, have developed a new actuarial method to estimate the tempo of aging and all-cause mortality in large cohorts of genetically diverse mice. We can now begin to tease apart DNA variants that modulate aging rates from variants that contribute to age- and sex-specific mortality.