Time, damage, and aging: what really matters?

This presentation was one of three short talks in the introductory session at the 2007 Edmonton Aging Symposium titled "The Damage of Aging: Present and Future Therapies." This title implies that if we can document what biological damage occurs with increasing age, then by either preventing, reducing or repairing this damage, we could intervene to delay the onset and severity of the adverse age-related phenotypes that accompany aging, and perhaps increase life span as well. While this assumption seems quite reasonable, some recent results suggest that this approach is not as straightforward as it might seem.