Comment by semperdark

Unmodified C elegans can certainly live to 3x reproductive age, fwiw. These are all simplistic model organisms by definition but many nearly identical proteins are found in humans and there’s value to studying their structure and function in a very well-known environment. I wouldn’t take it as “just delete IL11 and you’ll live to 130!” but the fact that it’s presented that way is more the fault of marketing departments and science writers.