Kia ora koutou, my name is Abraham Mains. My mother is Victoria Taylor of Taupō and my father is Ariki Mains. Dad’s mother (my tāua) is Ann Aitken and her mother was Hine Ellison. My great-great grandparents were Te Iwi and Horiwia and my third-great grandparents were Raniera Ellison and Nani Weller, and Timoti Karetai, and Hariata Robertson.

I was home-schooled by my mother in my early years. I later attended Dilworth College in Auckland where I became dux before attending Victoria University.
In 2013, I gained a first-class honours degree at Victoria University majoring in human genetics and was then selected for a Rutherford Scholarship to start a PhD at Cambridge University in 2014.

While completing my honours, I had become fascinated with the field of ageing. Why can a house dog, who shares the same lifestyle and much of its biology with humans, live for only 10-15 years and yet a human can live for over 100? [Read more…]