It was like stepping on to an escalator; I could do anything. I was just made for science.

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.

The idea that ageing was subject to control was completely unexpected.

It was like stepping on to an escalator; I could do anything. I was just made for science.

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.

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.

In principle, if you understood the mechanisms of keeping things repaired, you could keep things going indefinitely.