Centenarian on her 100th birthdayFLICKR, JUHANSONIN
A paper about longevity genes has turned out to have a pretty short life itself. Science has retracted the July 2010 paper because inadequate controls and a technical glitch in a gene sequencing chip may have falsely suggested genetic links with extremely long life in humans.
The retracted study, which was cited 25 times, according to Google Scholar, claimed to have identified 19 genes strongly associated with longevity in more than 1,000 centenarians. Some, like the APOE gene, had been linked to longevity in other studies, but many were novel.
Within days of the paper’s publication, however, outside researchers pointed out that the otherwise meticulously designed study was flawed because the researchers had used a gene sequencing chip, the Illumina 610-Quad, which can produce some ...
