Programme

Registration

Welcome address from Fotis C Kafato, Director General, EMBL

Roland Prinzinger (Chair), University of Frankfurt, Germany

Tom Kirkwood, University of Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, UK
Times of our lives: what controls length of life?

Ueli Schibler, University of Geneva, Switzerland
The time measuring systems of cells and organisms

Coffee break

Mario Capecchi, University of Utah, USA
Use of the mouse to study human longevity

Lunch

Nadia Rosenthal (Chair), EMBL Monterotondo, Italy

Aubrey de Grey, University of Cambridge, UK
The foreseeability of real anti-aging medicine

Peter Krammer, DKFZ, Heidelberg, Germany
No life without death

Jay Olshansky, University of Illinois, USA
Will human life expectancy decline in the 21st century?

Presentation of the EMBO Award for Communication in the Life Sciences

Coffee break

Panel discussion

Andreas Kruse (Chair), Heidelberg University, Germany
Cecil Helman, Brunel University and University College London, UK
Denis Duboule, University of Geneva, Switzerland
Paul Baltes, Max-Planck-Institute for Human Development, Berlin, Germany
Anthony Dick Ho, Heidelberg University, Germany
Lloyd Demetrius, Harvard University, USA

Conference Banquet

Laura Helmuth (Chair), Smithsonian Magazine, Washington, USA

Charles McConnel, University of Texas, Austin, USA
The anti-aging economy – prospects and problems

Suresh Rattan, University of Aarhus, Denmark
Aging Intervention: prevention or therapy?

Coffee break

Paolo Giacomoni, Estée Lauder Companies, NY, USA
Aging, industry and policies: the cosmetic point of view

Kári Stefánsson, deCODE Genetics, Reykjavik, Iceland
Genetics of longevity in Iceland

Lunch
(Projection of a film by J. F. Brunet:The Life and Times of Life and Times)

Geoff Watts(Chair), BBC Science Editor, London, UK

Alex Mauron, University of Geneva, Switzerland
The choosy reaper: from the myth of eternal youth to the reality of unequal death

Arthur Caplan, University of Pennsylvania, USA
Is there anything immoral about wanting to live forever?

Debbora Battaglia, Mount Holyoke College, MA, USA
A futurology of science and religion: immortality re-imagined

Coffee break

Panel discussion

Gary Ruvkun, Harvard Medical School, USA
Karin Knorr Cetina, University of Constance, Germany
Donald Bruce, Church of Scotland, Edinburgh, Scotland

Closing remarks
Frank Gannon, Executive Director, EMBO