10 Facts About Denham Harman

Denham Harman was an American medical academic who latterly served as professor emeritus at the University of Nebraska Medical Center.

Denham Harman worked for six years as a Shell research chemist, in part studying free radical reactions in petroleum products.

Denham Harman became fascinated with the phenomenon of aging, its cause and possible cure.

Denham Harman became chair of cardiovascular research at the University of Nebraska College of Medicine in 1958.

Denham Harman was married to the same woman for most of his life, a journalism student whom he met at a fraternity dance while at the University of California.

Denham Harman quit because of a back injury, but he continued to take regular walks to help him maintain a weight of 140 pounds on his 5-foot-10 frame.

Denham Harman died in Omaha, Nebraska, on November 25,2014, from a short illness, aged 98.

In 1954, between his internship and residency in internal medicine, Denham Harman became a research associate at the Donner Laboratory of Medical Physics at UC Berkeley, where he was able to pursue the puzzle of the cause of aging.

Denham Harman published his ideas on what he called the "mitochondrial theory of aging" in the April 1972 issue of the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.

In 1969 Denham Harman became concerned that few of those involved in gerontology were studying the biological aspects of aging, and fewer still had a serious interest in discovering the cause of aging.