David Andrew Sinclair

“Well, originally we found resveratrol just in a test tube, looking for molecules that would turn on this enzyme, this protein that seems to defend against diseases in aging.”

“You want to shock the body and not be constant. Intermittent fasting is an increasingly popular way: Skip breakfast, for example. Also lifting weights, losing your breath from exercise and alternating between hot and cold temperatures. We think these measures will only get us to 100 to 122 years old. That's our natural lifespan.”

“My grandmother is the black-sheep rebel of the family.”

“Aging is just like any deterioration of the body. It fulfills every category of what we call a disease except one: it impacts more than half the population.”

“So what we're all hoping to do, us researchers, is to develop ways to not really just extend lifespan but to keep people healthier for longer. We may just have a greater impact than a single drug because these drugs could potentially treat one disease but prevent 20 others.”

“I thought that tackling aging and the mechanisms that promote life would be worth figuring out. I wanted to learn why it is that some people are healthier than others and why some people live to 110 and others only to 60 or 70.”

“We used to think that aging was a lot like, as if we were cars made fresh and youthful and then we've entered this breakdown in diet. What we didn't realize until recently is that we're much more complex than a car. We fix ourselves if we're broken.”

“I'm driven to get to goals as fast as possible. It frustrates people in my lab who have something they think is cool, but if it doesn't move us forward, I don't want to do it.”

“When I started in the field, aging research was the backwater of biology. The idea that you could find a molecule that would prevent many diseases at once was considered impossible.”

“The ultimate goal is to have a pill that can prevent or reverse all diseases of aging. The major diseases that I'd like to tackle are heart disease, diabetes, Alzheimer's and cancer. I want to reduce those diseases by 10 percent.”

“A lot of scientists are hesitant to get involved with industry. It's seen as, you know, getting in bed with the devil, actually. But I found that doing this has been really the only way and one of the best ways I know to take a finding from the bench side to people.”