Cynthia Kenyon, PhD, is an American molecular biologist and biogerontologist. After earning her PhD in biochemistry and molecular biology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, she joined the faculty at the University of California, San Francisco, where her research focused on genetic regulation in the roundworm Caenorhabditis elegans. In 1993, Kenyon discovered that a single-gene mutation (Daf-2) could double the lifespan of C. elegans and that this could be reversed by a second mutation in daf-16m. The discovery demonstrated that aging is biologically regulated, and opened new paths for studying age-related disease. Kenyon later joined the biotechnology industry, and serves as vice president of aging research at Calico Life Sciences.
