Leonard Hayflick, Date of Birth, Place of Birth

    

Leonard Hayflick

American anatomist

Date of Birth: 20-May-1928

Place of Birth: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States

Profession: biologist, university teacher, anatomist

Nationality: United States

Zodiac Sign: Taurus


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About Leonard Hayflick

  • Leonard Hayflick (born 20 May 1928) is a Professor of Anatomy at the UCSF School of Medicine, and was Professor of Medical Microbiology at Stanford University School of Medicine.
  • He is a past president of the Gerontological Society of America and was a founding member of the council of the National Institute on Aging (NIA).
  • The recipient of a number of research prizes and awards, including the 1991 Sandoz Prize for Gerontological Research, he has studied the aging process for more than fifty years.
  • He is known for discovering that normal human cells divide for a limited number of times in vitro (refuting the contention by Alexis Carrel that normal body cells are immortal).
  • This is known as the Hayflick limit.
  • His discoveries overturned a 60-year old dogma that all cultured cells are immortal.
  • Hayflick demonstrated that normal cells have a memory and can remember at what doubling level they have reached.
  • He demonstrated that his normal human cell strains were free from contaminating viruses.
  • His cell strain WI-38 soon replaced primary monkey kidney cells and became the substrate for the production of most of the world's human virus vaccines.
  • Hayflick discovered that the etiological agent of primary atypical pneumonia (also called "walking pneumonia") was not a virus as previously believed.
  • He was the first to cultivate the causative organism called a mycoplasma, the smallest free-living organism, which Hayflick isolated on a unique culture medium that bears his name.
  • He named the organism Mycoplasma pneumoniae. In 1959, Hayflick developed the first inverted microscope for use in cell culture research.
  • To this day, all inverted microscopes used in cell culture laboratories worldwide are descended from this prototype.
  • His microscope was accessioned by the Smithsonian Institution in 2009. Hayflick developed the first practical method for producing powdered cell culture media in 1965.
  • This method is now used worldwide for the production of many tons of powdered media annually for use in research laboratories and commercial production facilities.
  • The technique is not patented and Hayflick receives no remuneration from this invention.
  • Hayflick is the author of the book, How and Why We Age, published in August 1994 by Ballantine Books, NYC and available since 1996 as a paperback.
  • This book has been translated into nine languages and is published in Brazil, the Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Israel, Japan, Poland, Russia, and Spain.
  • It was a selection of the Book of the Month Club and has sold over 50,000 copies worldwide. Hayflick and his associates have vehemently condemned "anti-aging medicine" and criticized organizations such as the American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine.
  • Hayflick has written numerous articles criticizing both the feasibility and desirability of human life extension, which have provoked responses critical of his views.

Read more at Wikipedia

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