Scientist

Sugar is the new tobacco.

Imagine that: If you could change one of the genes in an experiment, an aging gene, maybe you could slow down aging and extend lifespan.

In the early '90s, we discovered mutations that could double the normal life span of worms.

One thing that's likely: How you look as you age is hereditary. Some of my family members, for example, look younger than their real age. And people have mistaken me for 30, even 25.

Maybe one day we will be able to take a pill that keeps us young and healthy much longer. I believe in my heart that this will happen.

It's possible that we could change a human gene and double our life span. I don't know if that's true, but we can't rule that out.

With worms you can just change genes at random and see if you can find a mutant that does what you want it to do.

Ageing is very exciting. But if I didn't work on ageing, I'd want to work on the brain. There are really cool techniques you can use now. And bioinformatics. The methods you can use for comparing large data sets - that's so powerful.

Perhaps genes did regulate the aging process. Perhaps different organisms had different life spans because a universal regulatory 'clock' was set to run at different speeds in different species.

You could have two completely different careers if you could stay healthy to 90. How fascinating that would be.

I loved the idea that biology was logical.

A big tree seemed even more beautiful to me when I imagined thousands of tiny photosynthesis machines inside every leaf. So I went to MIT and worked on bacteria because that's where people knew the most about these switches, how to control the genetics.

I was one of those kids who was always seeking the truth, and I first looked for truth by reading novels. It took quite a long time for me to realize there are better ways.

I have always gotten a thrill, a kick, from learning new things.

It is unlikely that changes in telomeres are influencing the lifespan of the worm. That is because telomeres only shorten when cells divide. Most of the cells of the worm stop dividing when the worm becomes an adult.

With science it's very important not to go down the wrong path, but the wrong path in science is a path you go down where everything you learn is already known. So you need to steer around the obvious.