Aging in C. elegans

In the last decade of the 20th century one model organism has received more attention from gerontologists than any other, namely the free-living soil nematode Caenorhabditis elegans (C. elegans). We owe much of our general view of the genetic determination of lifespan to this organism. C. elegans became a popular organism for the analysis of complex biological problems following the pioneering work of Sidney Brenner and Sir John Sulston who determined the developmental cellular fate map [1]. It is also noted for the early work of Robert Horvitz and colleagues who used the cell lineage map to begin a genetic dissection of programmed cell death [2].