Survival analysis: lessons from quantitative genetics.

Abstract

Symposia such as this provide a unique opportunity to evolve interdisciplinary strategies for solving scientific problems. Quantitative and behavioral genetics illustrate the wealth of natural experimental material to be obtained from the study of individual differences and the correlations between relatives. The study of natural variation and familial resemblances can help us understand the genetic and environmental regulation of any process and there are areas of theory and knowledge which suggest models, methods and paradigms which would be valuable in analysing the processes underlying aging. It has become increasingly clear that the timing of onset of disease is correlated in families (Farrer and Conneally, 1985), but that there are important individual differences in age-dependent processes, the elucidation of which may help us understand more about the genetic and environmental control of aging. In my brief discussion I want to summarize the basic issues of genetic analysis of individual differences and then suggest how some of the mathematical models geneticists have devised might be used to study aging.