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

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.

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

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.

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