A true giant in the field of biology of ageing, Leonard Hayflick, passed away on the 1st of August 2024 at the age of 96. A previous winner of the British Society for Research for Ageing (BSRA) Lord Cohen medal, the BSRA wishes to mark the contribution that Hayflick made to both understanding ageing, and the wider field of in vitro methodologies in general.
Whilst he is probably most well-known for the eponymous Hayflick limit, or the observation that cells can only replicate a certain number of times before they become senescent, he also has a legacy in many areas of biomedical sciences. He developed Hayflick broth for the culturing of mycoplasma, isolated the WI-38 fibroblast cell line that is commonly used for vaccine production to this day, produced the first polio vaccines, and developed the inverted microscope which can be found on the bench of every lab that does in vitro work today. Indeed, both Hayflick’s original inverted microscope and a vial of the first polio vaccine are in the archives of the Smithsonian Institution, such is their value to history. Amongst a list of contributions too long to write here, Hayflick was also Editor in Chief of Experimental Gerontology for 13 years, and a founding member of the Council of the National Institute of Aging.
“When I entered this field, to declare publicly or even to your colleagues that you were working in the field of biogerontology or aging research was tantamount to committing professional suicide … Aging research is now strongly rooted in the scientific main stream”
Hayflick, 1999
A frequent attendee of BSRA annual meetings, last attending in 2011, Hayflick was awarded the Lord Cohen Medal at the BSRA 1999 meeting in recognition of his work, the highest award for services to gerontology in the United Kingdom. When interviewed as part of this award, Suresh Rattan asked Hayflick “How would you like to be remembered?”
“Just a fellow who did his job, I suppose, that’s all”
Hayflick, 1999
Hayflick will be remembered as a scientist who gave us fundamental techniques that changed the field of life sciences and are still widely used today, dragged biogerontology into the mainstream, and changed the field of biogerontology forever. The BSRA joins all our membership in remembering a scientist who did a lot more than ‘just’ his job.