By the time you reach, say, 105, “it’s very hard to get there without some genetic advantages,’’ says Dr. Thomas Perls, a geriatrics expert at Boston University.
Perls is helping find centenarians for the Archon Genomics X Prize competition. The X Prize Foundation, best known for a spaceflight competition, is offering $10 million in prize money to researchers who decipher the complete DNA code from 100 people older than 100. The contest will be judged on accuracy, completeness, and the speed and cost of sequencing.
The contest is a relaunch of an older competition with a new focus on centenarians, and it is the second sequencing project involving the elderly to be announced this month.
Genome pioneer J. Craig Venter says the centenarian project is just a first step in revealing the genetic secrets of a long and healthy life.
“We need 10,000 genomes, not 100, to start to understand the link between genetics, disease, and wellness,’’ said Venter, who is cochairing the X Prize contest.
Eberhardt, of Chester, N.J., played and taught tennis until he was 94. He said he is participating in the X Prize project because he is interested in science and technology. It is not clear his genes will reveal much. Nobody else in his extended family reached 100, and he thinks only a couple reached 90, he said in a telephone interview.
So why does he think he lived so long? He credits 70 years of marriage to his wife, Marie. She in turn cites his “intense interest in so many things’’ over a lifetime, from building radios as a child to pursuing a career in electronics research.
But scientists believe there is more to it, and they want to use genome sequencing to investigate. Dr. Richard Cawthon of the University of Utah, who is seeking longevity genes by other means, says it may turn up genetic features that protect against multiple diseases or that slow the process of aging in general.
