Ageing – a physiological deterioration leading to reduced fertility and increased probability of death with age – is a nearly universal feature of living organisms, including humans. This explains the widespread interest in this subject across different scientific disciplines. Ageing also poses a major challenge to the evolutionary biologists - given the large number of cellular repair mechanisms, it is not obvious why individual organisms should senesce.

The research on ageing is progressing along two main paths: fundamental research is seeking to discover the general genetic framework for the evolution of ageing; applied research is seeking medical interventions that can postpone or slow down ageing and ameliorate the effects of age-related diseases. Recent advances on both of these frontiers suggest that we may have to reconsider some of the core theoretical foundations of the evolutionary theory of ageing. By combining novel theory, experimental evolution, data sets from long-term field studies, quantitative genetics and the latest developments in genomics, we aim to provide a deeper understanding of why and how ageing evolves. We also have a special interest in understanding the phenomenon of sex differences in senescence, which are ubiquitous across the animal kingdom and represent a long-standing challenge in biology. Males and females differ not only in how long they live and when do they start to senesce, but also in how they react to environmental interventions aimed at prolonging their life span or postponing the onset of ageing. Sex differences in lifespan and ageing have therefore important implications beyond the questions posed by fundamental science. Our research on ageing is currently funded by the European Research Council (ERC), the Swedish Foundation for Strategic Research (SSF), the Swedish Research Council (VR), the Wenner-Gren Foundation and Carl Trygger’s Foundation. We also have direct financial support from the Vice-Chancellor of Uppsala University, Prof. Anders Hallberg and from the Faculty of Science and Technology at Uppsala University.