Dr. Jerry Shay Joins Life Length as Scientific Advisor

MADRID, March 31, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Life Length the new biotechnology company that measures the length of telomeres, announced that Dr. Jerry W. Shay has been appointed as a Scientific Advisor.

Stephen J. Matlin, CEO, Life Length said, "We are delighted to welcome Dr. Shay, one of the foremost world experts on aging and cancer to Life Length." Jerry W. Shay is Vice Chairman of the Department of Cell Biology at The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, Associate Director of the Harold Simmon's Comprehensive Cancer Center, and holds the Southland Corporation Distinguished Chair in Aging and Cancer Research. He is Director of the Cancer Biology Graduate Program. His seminal work on the relationships of telomerase to aging and cancer has received much international recognition. He received the AlliedSignal Award, the American Association of Aging Hayflick Award, and the Ted Nash Foundation Award. Dr. Shay was named an Ellison Medical Foundation Senior Scholar.

Dr. Shay said, "Life Length uses the technique developed by Dr. Blasco which measures each individual telomere cell-by-cell with enormous precision. Currently all other approaches only provide average telomere length which has limited usefulness. Whereas, Life Length's approach has the critical advantage of learning about the shortest telomeres at the individual cell level, which have the greatest impact on cell senescence and aging. This technology provides information at the cell and tissue level about heterogeneity that is important and clearly exists between cells in a mixed population enabling identification, for example, of a rare stem cell that may have longer telomeres. Thus, Life Length's technology is far superior."

About Life Length

Life Length, S.L. is the new biotechnology company established in September 2010 to commercially exploit the telomere length measuring technique known as TAT (Telomere Analysis Technology), developed by Dr. Maria Blasco, Chief Scientific Advisor, Life Length, at the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO), providing them to the pharmaceutical industry, hospitals and clinics, as well as research laboratories interested in measuring telomeres as indicators of biological age and the overall health of an organism. Life Length has an exclusive arrangement with CNIO to exploit TAT measurement technology and it is the first company in the world to offer these services. The founding partners of Life Length are the Botin Foundation, Dr. Maria Blasco and Matlin Associates. http://www.lifelength.com

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SOURCE Life Length