I eat some fruit every day, but not too much and almost no processed food. I stay away from sweets, except 80 per cent chocolate.

If I were a worm, I would rather be the long-lived mutant than the normal worm, that's for sure.

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.

Age is the single largest risk factor for an enormous number of diseases. So if you can essentially postpone aging, then you can have beneficial effects on a whole wide range of disease.

Carbohydrates, and especially refined ones like sugar, make you produce lots of extra insulin. I've been keeping my intake really low ever since I discovered this. I've cut out all starch such as potatoes, noodles, rice, bread and pasta.

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

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