Could a 200-year-old whale offer clues to help humans live longer?

Scientists are hoping the fountain of youth might be hidden inside a whale species that can live up to 200 years.

Joao Pedro de Magalhaes and his team at the University of Liverpool sequenced the genome of the bowhead whale, the longest living mammal on earth. The team wanted to understand why they live so long and don't succumb to some of the same illnesses as humans do earlier in life.

"One of the big mysteries of biology is understanding species differences including species differences in aging," Magalhaes told CBS News.

"For example, mice age 20 to 30 times faster than human beings and we don't know why ... Even primates which are closely related to us age considerably faster than human beings," he said. "There has to be some genetic basis to why humans age slower than chimpanzees for instance which are very genetically very similar to us. Likewise, there has to be some genetic basis as to why bowhead whales live so long and appear protected from diseases."

With a 1,000 times more cells than a human, the whale should have a much higher probability of cell death and disease. It doesn't.

In their findings published in the journal Cell Reports, the team found as many as 80 candidate genes that may help protect the whale from cancer or contribute to it being the longest living mammal on earth. The team found that the whales have genes related to DNA repair, as well as those regulating how cells proliferate, that differ from those found in humans.

"We know DNA damage and DNA mutation are important for cancer. So when we find genes related to DNA repair and DNA damage responses, we think maybe this could be involved in longevity and disease resistance of the bowhead," Magalheas said. "In that sense, you don't find a fountain of youth in the genome but you find some promising leads."

There is a huge industry searching for that elixir which could help humans live longer. Some research has gone into finding what is called longevity genes that could lead to new drug therapies while other research promotes such things as exercise and healthy eating to extend your life.

Two groups which funded most of the whale research -- the Life Extension Foundation and the Methuselah Foundation -- are seeking that magic potion. Life Extension focuses on such things as hormonal and nutritional supplements to fight aging while Methuselah is heavily invested in tissue engineering and regenerative medicine "to create a world where 90 year olds can be as health as 50 year olds, by 2030."

Methuselah's co-founder and CEO Dave Gobel said it invested in the whale research as part of its "hypothesis that the best way to find out how to become longevity outliers is to study those who already are genetic outliers within mammalian species" and then find "what genetic complexes, pathways seem most common among these outliers and to explore what they do, how they act, and what if any advantages can be derived from them to apply in humans."

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Could a 200-year-old whale offer clues to help humans live longer?