This Fish Could Unlock the Secrets of Youth

This story appeared on USC News, USC Stem Cell News, the USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology news website and USC Trojan Family Magazine.

Back in its native habitat, the African turquoise killifish wiggles from its egg, eats, spawns and dies — all within a few months. Life goes by fast when your home is a quickly evaporating pond of rainwater. But even when raised as pets in an aquarium, these killifish still live for less than a year.

For researchers studying aging, that’s a good thing. It turns out that the fish mature much like humans do — but far more rapidly. That makes them helpful for efficiently studying the aging process, and it’s why research labs focusing on the fish are growing exponentially.