Welcome to the Gerontology Research Group Home Page Hosted by UCLA

Physicians, Scientists, and Engineers dedicated to the quest to slow and ultimately reverse human aging within the next 50 years.

This site serves an independent community of world-wide scholars and academicians temporarily hosted by UCLA; none of the opinions expressed herein are endorsed by the University of California.
(Last updated on Wednesday, March 14, 2007; 5:40 PM PDT)

[ Administrative Note as of July 25, 2004: This website is a limited "mirror image" backup of our primary website located at www.grg.org, hosted by Interland.net Hosting of Atlanta, GA; USA. Please bookmark our primary site and use it first for the most up-to-date information, assuming that it is available. This UCLA website has not really been updated since last February 2004, and we urge you to use our primary website for official information. -- L. Stephen Coles, GRG System Administrator/Webmaster.]

By definition, a Supercentenarian is someone who has lived to be 110 years or older. We presently recognize 73 Validated Living Supercentenarians -- 64 Women and 9 Men. The high for 2005 so far was 75 Supercentenarians, but there are many candidates awaiting validation, so this number may be exceeded by Christmas. Click for the Official GRG
Table of Worldwide Living Supercentenarians.

Sra. Gesuina Donati and Giovanni Alunni
Sra. Gesuina Donati of ITALY (born June 9, 1893) on the occasion of her 111th birthday, with our GRG-Italian Correspondent, Mr. Giovanni Alunni. Note that the paper they are holding is a hard copy of the Official GRG Table of the Oldest Worldwide Living Persons. Click on the photo itself to see the current version of our Table, which serves as an inspiration to all Supercentenarians, helping them to appreciate where they rank compared with other persons of their own age around the world.

Jeanne Calment at age 40 Jeanne Calment at age 120
Here are sample photos of the World's Oldest Documented Person, Madame Jeanne Calment of France, when she was 40 years old (in 1915) and then when she was 120 years old (in 1995). Click on the older of the two pictures to hear a sample of her voice as she actually sounded at a recording session before she died in 1997.
[ Editor's Note: Speaking in her native language (which was French, of course), she says, "Bonjour, Je m'appelle Jeanne Calment." (= "Hello, My name is Jeanne Calment"). Later, on the music CD, which we converted to MP3 format, she goes on to sing several songs. (The musical beat in the background was part of the recording session, and there appears to be a man with a Jamaican accent who introduces her in English, which seems rather curious to us, but we obtained the CD from one of our colleagues in The Netherlands without further explanation as to how, when, or why it was made. All he could tell us is that there was a French Language website for those who might like more information about how to purchase a copy.) Subsequently, Mr. Robert Young of Atlanta, Georgia provided this additional information... "The Audio CD Mistress of Time was made some time after Jeanne's 120th birthday but before her 121st birthday. It was intended as a fund raiser to buy vans for her nursing home. The CD was released at Jeanne's 121st birthday party. Although it was a hit with reporters (looking to report on the "World's Oldest Rapper"), the controversy that followed about the commercial "exploitation" of a 120-year-old woman led to the resignation of her nursing-home director."

July 8, 2004; Click for a short NBC-TV Today Show video clip celebrating the 111th birthday of Mrs. Lena Dionne which aired on Thursday, July 1, 2004 at 9:10 AM PDT [TRT = 1 minute], as narrated by Willard Scott. As an experiment, this clip was captured at home from an analog VHS tape using digital compression to a 62.5 MB "avi" file using Pinnacle's Studio version 9 codec, so let us know if you have trouble viewing it through one of the standard players (like RealOne version 10, Windows Media Player or Apple QuickTime version 6.1).

We are sorry to report that we cannot FTP a file this large to the UCLA hosting server due to space limitations. We will try again when grg.org is rehosted on a new server in the next few days. Please be patient.

Mrs. Sally Gappell, 105
Mrs. Sally (Burtinsky) Gappell, 105 years old with her two of her Grand Daughters (both are First Cousins and not Sisters). Mrs. Gappell, born on March 1, 1899, is an active centenarian who lives independently in Los Angeles and plays contract bridge with her younger associates twice a week. If she gets to be a Supercentenarian, we will keep you informed.

November 9, 2005; Ms. Andrea Gappell writes "My Grandmother is doing great! She had very few problems adjusting to her new retirement hotel and is active in many of the group activities such as exercise classes and Bridge playing. But, she is slowing down physically and is using a walker to get around.

Mrs. Sally Gappell, now age 106
This photo was taken a few weeks ago at a party.

March 1, 2006; Sally Gappell is now 107 years old. I met with Sally and her Granddaughter last week in Westwood, and Sally is still going strong. She still plays "Duplicate Bridge" nearly every day. Keep up the good work, Sally. - Steve Coles

February 5, 2004; For the most up-to-date information and a complete set of links that should all be working, please click through to our main webpage at grg.org, hosted by dot5hosting.com of Houston, Texas; Santa Monica, CA; Phoenix, AZ; USA.
Note that this main website was temporarily down for repair between March 2nd and March 11th due Domain Name Service (DNS) problems encountered by our ISP. They have apologized to us and assured us that this problem will not recur. We are sorry for the inconvenience that many of you have experienced. New problems have been observed on Saturday, June 5th which have not yet been resolved, even by Thursday July 8th. We hope to resolve these newest technical problems soon, so please try to be patient.