Hebrew University study ties a fast-growth gene to early aging and cancer

Scientists at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem have shown how a single gene can give an animal a head start in life and then make it pay for that advantage later. The study, published in Nature Communications and announced on June 2, 2026, was led by Prof. Itamar Harel of the university's Silberman Institute of Life Sciences, with Dr. Eitan Moses and Dr. Marva Bergman, in collaboration with Prof. Nabieh Ayoub of the Technion and Prof. Alexei Maklakov of Britain's University of East Anglia.

The team focused on vgll3, a regulatory gene that in humans and other species has been linked to the timing of puberty and to height and weight. They studied it in the African turquoise killifish, a small fish that reaches old age within a few months and has become a popular model for aging research. Using CRISPR gene editing, the researchers altered vgll3 and followed the fish throughout their lives.

Fish with the altered gene grew faster, showed more stem cell activity and reached sexual maturity earlier, traits that would help them survive and reproduce in the wild. But they also lived shorter lives, by about 15 percent in males and 7 percent in females according to the Times of Israel, and they developed more signs of aging, including cataracts, muscle loss, reduced fertility and cognitive decline. Both sexes had a higher rate of tumors resembling melanoma. Further analysis showed that the gene affects cell division, stem cell behavior and DNA repair.

The results support a decades-old idea in evolutionary biology, known as antagonistic pleiotropy, which holds that genes that are helpful early in life can become harmful later. Harel said that the same biological machinery that helps a young body mature can drive tumor growth in an old one. Prof. Haim Cohen of Bar-Ilan University, who was not involved, said the work bridges a long-standing gap between theory and experimental evidence. The team's next step is to test whether the gene's early benefits can be separated from its later harms, with the goal of extending healthy years of life.