元器件交易网讯  4月21日消息，据外媒报道，谷歌秘密项目Project Calico旨在抗死亡或者延长人类性命。为此，公司又招聘了一位在抗衰老和遗传学研究领域顶级的科学家。

　　泰克公司(Genentech)前首席执行官凯尼恩（Kenyon），旧金山加州大学著名的生物化学家和生物物理学家加入此项目。

　　此前，现任Calico首席执行官阿瑟·莱文森、Roche公司前首席医疗官哈尔巴伦，泰克公司高级肿瘤学家罗伯特·科恩和普林斯顿大学Lewis-Sigler整合基因组学研究所前主任David Botstein加入了此项目。

　　这是一个遗传学研究团队，反映了谷歌强大的愿景。除了谷歌创始人拉里•佩奇(Larry Page)最初公布此项目，莱文森9月称，“成为团队的一部分很伟大”之外，其它关于Calico项目的细节目前尚不得知。

　　去年12月，VentureBeat称Calico是硅谷“最有趣的初创公司”。

　　（元器件交易网董蕾 译）

　　外媒原文如下：

　　Google’s secretive Project Calico is aimed at defeating death itself — or at least staving it off far longer than ever before.

　　To that end, the company has been recruiting some of the top names in anti-aging and genetics research. The latest is Cynthia Kenyon, a high-profile biochemist and biophysicist at the University of California, San Francisco, according to a report in the San Francisco Chronicle.

　　VentureBeat actually reported in November that Kenyon would be joining Calico; she has served as a consultant to the project since then. The Chronicle confirmed that she has finally left her UCSF post to join Calico full-time, although she’ll retain the title of emeritus professor at UCSF.

　　Kenyon’s UCSF lab has focused its research since the 1990s on a small roundworm, C. elegans. Kenyon’s team found that modifications to a gene called daf-2 resulted in doubling the lifespan of the worms, from two weeks to four; another gene, daf-16, kept them youthful despite their extended ages.

　　“Seeing them is like being with someone that looks 40 and learning that they are really 80,” the lab notes on its website.

　　Subsequent research, by other scientists, have shown that similar genes control lifespan and aging in fruit flies, mice, and possibly even humans. Changing the genes slows aging and increases resistance to age-related diseases such as cancer, heart failure, and protein-aggregation disease.

　　In coming to Calico, Kenyon joins former Genentech chief executive and current Calico CEO Arthur Levinson; former Roche chief medical officer Hal Barron; Robert Cohen, a senior oncologist at Genentech; and David Botstein, the former director of the Lewis-Sigler Institute for Integrative Genomics at Princeton University. 

　　It’s an A-team of genetics researchers that reflects the magnetism that Google’s powerful vision (and cash) exerts. Whether the team will be able to accomplish things where others have failed is still uncertain. Few details on what exactly Calico is doing have emerged, apart from Google founder Larry Page’s initial post on the project and Levinson’s bland “it’s great to be part of the team” note from September.

　　In December, VentureBeat called Calico “the most interesting startup in Silicon Valley.”