Biology of Aging.

As biologists, we are constantly searching to find the meaning of cellular and organismal life. As we study different organisms to find the answers to the questions “how” and “why” do we exist, we uncover more related questions: How do we grow? How do we age? What tells our bodies that it is time to die? Biogerontology is a relatively new field of science that strives to find answers to the scientific mysteries of aging. It is a complicated integration of mathematics, neurobiology, molecular biology, biophysics, physical chemistry, and genetics, and this textbook covers them all. In doing so, it is the first textbook that covers the topics of aging from a biological perspective and not the traditional biomedical one. The first few chapters discuss the basics of aging: definitions, how longevity is measured and evolutionary theories of longevity that have changed over time. These chapters provide a great historical perspective of the topic, and the author includes many interesting examples of studies about how various lifestyles have influenced aging in several species. Following these chapters, the textbook narrows in on cellular and genetic processes that influence longevity, and mechanisms are discussed in depth for each model organism from S. cerevisiae to mice to plants and, finally, to humans. The book stresses the differences between human studies of longevity and those performed in other model species, especially the difficulties that arise when working with human populations. I especially found fascinating the discussion regarding how human intelligence has influenced mortality rates in Chapter 7. The textbook delves even further into human aging in Chapter 8, which details the many internal physiological effects of aging on the function of human systems. The final two chapters of this 10-chapter text highlight age-related disease in humans and future directions of aging-related science, which were some of the most interesting sections of the book. While this book is well written and easy to understand, at times I was confused as to the intended audience. Biogerontology is certainly not an introductory science course; however, many of the subjects covered in the book could have been taken from an introductory biology textbook. Such topics include cell cycle regulation, mitochondrial function, and the structure of DNA. While these topics may serve as a refresher for an undergraduate student, the amount of time and detail that was put into them was probably too extensive for this text. In addition, some of the techniques described in detail seemed irrelevant to the topic of aging in particular the description of PCR and the creation of knockout genetic models in Chapter 5. These topics would lead me to think of the intended audience as undergraduate students; however, some of the later topics in the book would be more of interest to a higher-level researcher or graduate student. Overall, the textbook does an excellent job at combining genetics and biology with chemistry and mathematics to approach the cellular and systemic aspects of aging from all possible angles. The examples that it provides are straightforward and interesting and serve to highlight the amazing science that has been performed or is currently contributing to the field. It is clear that modulating aging and longevity in the upcoming years will be an important area of scientific research, and this textbook offers a sufficient framework that would be a significant resource for anyone interested in these new directions for the future.