The Science of Healthy Ageing by Professor Linda Partridge - Paget Lecture 2014

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Understanding Animal Research

Professor Dame Linda Partridge, director of the UCL Institute of Healthy Ageing, delivered a fascinating lecture on “The Science of Healthy Ageing”. Recent work has shown that ageing is malleable to genetic, dietary and pharmacological intervention. She described work in her own laboratory to create an inducible model of Alzheimer’s disease using fruit flies, which shows very similar pathology to the human condition. These findings have opened the way to discovering drugs capable of producing a broad-spectrum improvement in the health of older people. The 78th Stephen Paget Memorial Lecture was given at the Wellcome Collection in London in December. The Lecture was established in 1927 following the death of Stephen Paget, founder of UAR forerunner, the Research Defence Society. Past Paget Lecturers have included Nobel Laureates Sir Howard Florey and Sir Peter Medawar, and renowned evolutionary biologist and science writer Professor Steve Jones. The inaugural Understanding Animal Research Openness Awards for animal research were given immediately preceding the lecture.