Biological immortality

Biological immortality (sometimes referred to as bio-indefinite mortality) is a state in which the rate of mortality from senescence (or aging) is stable or decreasing, thus decoupling it from chronological age. Various unicellular and multicellular species, including some vertebrates, achieve this state either throughout their existence or after living long enough. A biologically immortal living being can still die from means other than senescence, such as through injury, poison, disease, predation, lack of available resources, or changes to environment.

This definition of immortality has been challenged in the Handbook of the Biology of Aging,^[1] because the increase in rate of mortality as a function of chronological age may be negligible at extremely old ages, an idea referred to as the late-life mortality plateau. The rate of mortality may cease to increase in old age, but in most cases that rate is typically very high.^[2]

The term is also used by biologists to describe cells that are not subject to the Hayflick limit on how many times they can divide.

^ Masoro, E.J. (2006). Austad, S.N. (ed.). Handbook of the Biology of Aging (Sixth ed.). San Diego, CA: Academic Press. ISBN 978-0-12-088387-5.
^ Michael R. Rose; Casandra L. Rauser; Laurence D. Mueller (Nov–Dec 2005). "Late life: a new frontier for physiology". Physiological and Biochemical Zoology. 78 (6): 869–878. doi:10.1086/498179. PMID 16228927. S2CID 31627493.

[Masoro2006-1] Masoro, E.J. (2006). Austad, S.N. (ed.). Handbook of the Biology of Aging (Sixth ed.). San Diego, CA: Academic Press. ISBN 978-0-12-088387-5.

[2] Michael R. Rose; Casandra L. Rauser; Laurence D. Mueller (Nov–Dec 2005). "Late life: a new frontier for physiology". Physiological and Biochemical Zoology. 78 (6): 869–878. doi:10.1086/498179. PMID 16228927. S2CID 31627493.

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