Michael R. Rose Biography

Michael R. Rose is a Professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of California, Irvine. His Ph.D. advisor was Brian Charlesworth. His main area of work has been the evolution of aging, approached both theoretically and empirically via the technique of experimental evolution. In 1991, he published Evolutionary Biology of Aging exploring a view of the subject based on antagonistic pleiotropy, the hypothesis that aging is caused by genes that have two effects, one acting early in life and the other much later. The genes are favored by natural selection as a result of their early-life benefits, and the costs that accrue much later appear as incidental side-effects that we identify as aging. Dr. Rose has also suggested that aging can stop in a latter stage of life. The field of aging biology is divided between those who think that it will be very difficult to develop technology to postpone human aging and those who expect breakthroughs in this field in the near future. Rose is an outspoken advocate for the former position.