Bruce N. Ames

Our main interest is in identifying the important mutagens damaging human DNA, the defenses protecting us from them, and the consequences of DNA damage for cancer and aging. Aging and the degenerative diseases that accompany it are shown, in good part, to be due to oxidation. This has led us to become interested in oxidative mutagens, dietary antioxidants, oxidative defenses, and developing methods for measuring oxidation in humans with an aim of delaying the degenerative diseases of aging.