Leonard Hayflick

Leonard Hayflick (born May 20, 1928), Ph.D., is Professor of Anatomy at the University of California, San Francisco, School of Medicine, and was Professor of Medical Microbiology at Stanford University School of Medicine. He is a past president of the Gerontological Society of America and was a founding member of the council of the National Institute on Aging (NIA). The recipient of several research prizes and awards, including the 1991 Sandoz Prize for Gerontological Research, he has studied the aging process for more than thirty years. He is known for discovering that human cells divide for a limited number of times in vitro (refuting the contention by Alexis Carrel that normal body cells are immortal). This is known as the Hayflick limit.

Hayflick is the author of the book, “How and Why We Age”, published in August 1994 by Ballantine Books, NYC and available in 1996 as a paperback. This book has been translated into nine languages and is published in Japan, Brazil, Russia, Spain, Germany, the Czech Republic, Poland, Israel and Hungary. It was a selection of The Book of the Month Club and has sold over 50,000 copies worldwide.

Hayflick and his associates have vehemently condemned "anti-aging medicine" and criticized organizations such as the American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine. Hayflick has written numerous articles criticizing both the feasibility and desirability of human life extension, which have provoked responses critical of his views.