First the good news. Average life expectancy increases by five hours every single day in the UK and other developed countries, according to Professor Tom Kirkwood, director of the Institute for Ageing and Health at Newcastle University. Just yesterday the Department of Health released figures suggesting that the life expectancy of boys born in England between 2007 and 2009 is 78, and 82 for girls – an increase from 75 and 80 respectively 10 years ago.

The bad news, of course, is that increasing longevity means more and more people will experience the dread diseases of old age such as Alzheimer's, arthritis and diabetes.

Kirkwood has been claiming for years that ageing and its associated infirmities are not inevitable. Our bodies have the capacity to maintain some cells – namely sperm and eggs, "germ cells" – in tip-top condition. This ability is essential because these cells carry the torch for our species down the generations. The way in which all the other "soma" cells are allowed to run down, accumulating DNA damage and stopping dividing, is simply an evolutionary side-effect.

Kirkwood's disposable soma hypothesis leaves open the possibility that medical science could fine-tune soma cells to repair their DNA damage and continue dividing through old age ... without becoming cancerous. If only we understood the metabolic pathways that regulate DNA repair.

This short film shows how the Institute for Ageing and Health is making great strides towards this goal. Kirkwood's colleague Glyn Nelson has developed a technique that allows DNA damage and repair in cells to be tracked over time, and a thousand people over 85 in Newcastle and north Tyneside have been recruited for intensive study.

It's early days, but once we've cracked the complex mechanism governing whether cells give up repairing their DNA and stop dividing we'll have the key to developing genuine anti-ageing treatments.