Could Rapamycin Help Humans Live Longer?

From extending lifespan to bolstering the immune system, the drug’s effects are only just beginning to be understood.

Written byAnne N. Connor

| 5 min read

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In the 1990s, pharmacologist Dave Sharp of the University of Texas’s Barshop Institute for Longevity and Aging Studies in San Antonio was studying mice with pituitary dwarfism—a condition in which the pituitary gland fails to make enough growth hormone for normal development. The puzzle, Sharp explains, was that research had shown that these hormone-deficient dwarf mice lived longer than normal mice. “I wondered, why is being small connected with longer life?” he says.

Yeast research led by molecular biologist Michael Hall at the University of Basel in Switzerland was to provide Sharp with an unexpected lead. In 1996, a team led by Hall (who would go on to win a Lasker award in 2017 for the work) revealed a new intracellular signaling pathway, mediated by ...

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Meet the Author

Anne N. Connor
Anne N. Connor is a solutions-based science writer and editor based in Vermont. Her primary beats are climate change, the environment, and health. She has been writing about science for about fifteen years and earned her master’s degree in science writing from Johns Hopkins University. Read more about her work here: https://annenconnor.com. Find her on Twitter: @AnneENConnor.
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