Cynthia Kenyon, American Cancer Society professor and director of the Hillblom Center for the Biology of Aging at the University of California-San Francisco, gives a scientific lecture Thursday at the Kansas University School of Pharmacy. Kenyon spoke about genetics and the aging process at the Takeru Higuchi Memorial Lecture.

California researcher Cynthia Kenyon, while delivering a lecture on Thursday that honored a Kansas University professor known as “The Father of Physical Pharmacy,” told audience members that genes can have a major effect on the aging process.

Kenyon is the American Cancer Society professor and director of the Hillblom Center for the Biology of Aging at the University of California-San Francisco, and has used a tiny roundworm, C. elegans, to demonstrate a wide range of the effects genes can have on aging.

Mixing in an occasional whimsical illustration of an aged, bearded worm walking around with a cane, Kenyon outlined how she and others have observed that changing the genetic makeup of a worm can result in worms with significantly different lifespans.

She said that normal worms that face harsh conditions can activate a certain gene that triggers a number of cell protection and repair processes that can lengthen their lifespan. By altering other genes, she and her research team have found that they can essentially activate the same genes that are activated by those harsh conditions without the conditions being present.

“They don’t just live longer,” she said of the worms. “They’re actually resistant to all sorts of nasty things.”

Kenyon delivered the 12th Takeru Higuchi Memorial Lecture on Thursday. The series honors the legacy of Higuchi, a distinguished professor of pharmacy and chemistry who came to KU in 1967.

Val Stella, a KU distinguished professor of pharmaceutical chemistry who studied under Higuchi, said he analyzed Higuchi’s contributions to the field shortly after the professor’s death in 1987.

“They were many and varied,” Stella said. They included his many advancements in the field of drug formulation and delivery, but also in placing a focus on professors as entrepreneurs.

Kenyon delivered two lectures on Thursday; one was a scientific lecture designed for faculty and students, and another, entitled “Genes from the Fountain of Youth,” was designed for the general public.

Stella said the lecture series was designed to bring some of the foremost scientists practicing today to KU to inform students, faculty and the public.

Parts of Kenyon’s research has been replicated in fruit flies and mice, and could have implications in human beings — though full studies would obviously take a long time to complete, given the lifespan of a human being, she said. One reason the roundworms are so useful to study is their short lifespans.

The research still raises a number of interesting possible hypotheses for humans, she said. One potential question the research raises, she said, is the possibility that eating sugar may trigger an effect on a gene that has an impact on aging.

“Maybe,” she said, “if you don’t eat sugar, you can eat all you want.”