EXPIRY DATE

Weybridge, England: When Matt Norton's body is discovered washed up on a riverbank, it is the shocking end to a short and tragic life. Matt suffered from a rare ageing disorder called progeria; still at primary school, he had the body of a seventy-five-year-old. His father Andrew can't believe it - especially when he learns that his son's death might not have been accidental . . .Washington, DC: Gene-therapy is as much about spin as it is about research, especially on a project as exciting as NP3. For Dr Lorna Reid has discovered nothing less than the elusive elixir vitae: a miracle anti-ageing drug that puts back by decades the expiry date genetically written into our DNA. But not everyone is as thrilled as the media are by Lorna's scientific breakthroughs. Unless she is extremely careful, the anti-ageing guru is about to find her own life-expectancy drastically reduced .